VoltySquirrel
Member
As has now become the norm, Ubisoft has stated that they will support the Nintendo NX, causing numerous retorts that "Ubisoft abandoned the Wii U", usually along with a "Show me the receipts" gif or a rant about how Ubisoft screwed Nintendo with their delay of Rayman Legends. This has always bugged the hell out of me because if anything Ubisoft was one of the last publishers to officially "abandon" the Wii U (which is itself an oxymoron but more on that later). However, I never felt the need to state it in words before now.
This was in part prompted by two people I very much enjoy otherwise (a certain reporter known for NX leaks and a certain Bidoof) more or less saying Ubisoft abandoned the Wii U. So, I decided to spend a half hour or so tabulating the total amount of games published or developed, solely or otherwise, by all the major 3rd party publishers. THQ was left out because they have an excuse (bankruptcy right after Wii U launch), while Deep Silver was excluded because they only started publishing games for the Wii U this year.
Methodology was not exactly scientific but as best I could manage. I used the "List of Wii U software" Wikipedia page. Apps were excluded, as well as any games that never actually came out or were merely another publishers game being handled by another in the EU/JP. That last one really only applies to a few Bandai Namco games that they handled the EU/JP publishing of. I recorded total number of games as well as the beginning and end of their support. I also recorded the last release date of any "non-cash cows". This is basically my way of categorizing games like Skylanders, LEGO, and Just Dance that were supported until now while the "real" support ended a long time ago. That only ended up applying to Activision, WB, and Ubisoft. Dates were chosen based off most recent US/JP release (sorry Europe).
Analysis will come later, but here is the data. First, a breakdown of the number of games per publisher and what those games generally are:
2K/Take Two: 1 (NBA 2K13)
Activision: 25 (2 CoDs, 5 Skylanders, 16 useless ports/licensed garbage/shovelware)
Bandai Namco: 17 (possibly 19, 4 were either just developed/co-developed for Nintendo, only 10 released in West, games from other publishers that they published in EU/JP for excluded)
Capcom: 5 (2 are Monster Hunter games, only one of which came out in the US (each successive update/release of Frontier G not counted)
Deep Silver: 3 (1 still in development, 1 is EU eShop exclusive, 1 is Mighty No. 9)
EA: 4 (2 sports games, other 2 were ports of games from a few months prior, no games released outside of 4 month launch window)
Koei Tecmo: 6 (2 were published in JP as Koei Tecmo while as Nintendo elsewhere, 1 was solely published by Nintendo
Konami: 0 (1 was planned by apparently never released. Some board game.)
Sega: 8 (2 Mario & Sonic games (which were published by Nintendo), 3 other Sonic games (1 racer, 1 okay/not great, 1 Boom))
Ubisoft: 22 (7 Just Dance games (plus 1 released only in Japan published by Nintendo))
WB Games: 17 (3 Batman games, 9 Lego games, 10 if you count Lego Undercover which Nintendo published by TT is owned by WB)
As you can see, there's only 4 publishers with a total amount of games in the double digits: Activision, WB, Ubisoft, and Namco Bandai. Activision comes out the winner with 25 games released to date, followed by Ubisoft with 22, while Bandai Namco and WB both bring in 17 games. Take out Just Dance for Ubisoft and you have 15 games. Take out LEGO for WB and you have 7-8 games total. Take out all the Skylanders and licensed garbage for Activision and you have 4. That makes the new ranking 17 Namco, 17 Ubisoft, 7-8 WB, and 4 Activision. But sure, Ubisoft only make Just Dance games for Wii U.
As for range of support, take a look at this here spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lWHkqaa8BUHv0IosXv6FXCHAC97BPCgYytX0EOcKxx0/edit#gid=0 Figure 1 shows the total amount of time supported, with cash cows included, while Figure 2 shows the total without cash cows.
Now, what does this all say? Well, in terms of long-term support, Ubisoft is still supporting the damn thing. Of course, though, that's all just because of Just Dance. Apparently that's not "real" support. Which is where Figure 2 comes in. I've removed Just Dance, Skylanders, and LEGO from the equation. When you do that, Ubisoft finds itself right in the middle. Better than half, worse than the other. It is #5 out of a possible 10. Sure, you can take 2K and Konami out because they didn't even bother trying, but that still puts Ubisoft at 5 out of 8.
That's not exactly great numbers, but keep in mind that the only western publisher that supported the Wii U better is Activision, and that's only because of Guitar Hero Live (which was on EVERYTHING, even your freaking phone). Take that and licensed garbage like the Peanuts Movie game and a The Voice game and you get taken back to 6/24/14 with Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark. Doing that knocks Activision back to between WB and Ubisoft. Which would make Ubisoft the best supporter in the West and the only one to support for 2 years, if ever so exactly.
Of course, I find it ridiculous that we argue about what constitutes "real" support to begin with. You may not care about Just Dance whatsoever but clearly someone does because they keep releasing it on Wii U. Those are people buying games for their Wii U that aren't just published by Nintendo. Whether or not you care about them is irrelevant. It just comes across as elitist.
Now, I'm not saying Ubisoft didn't "abandon" the Wii U (even if that's what the thread title says). It's obvious just by looking at their overall releases that over time Wii U stopped showing up, barring the occasional Just Dance game. But that is hardly unique to Ubisoft. Literally every other Western publisher did the same crap.
But it's not like they did it for no reason. In the early days the system numbers were low and the software sales were even lower. Not to mention the fact the console was vastly underpowered compared to it's Sony and Microsoft sibling. So ports were out the window, leaving only games that didn't require much processing power and/or completely new games for the Wii U. Which they totally should have done from a creative sense but it also clearly made zero business sense to. I'm all for publishers and studio making products at a possible loss for the prestige but games do not function the way the film industry does. Your game needs to be marketable and profitable.
TL;DR Ubisoft was not the only Western publisher to "abandon" the Wii U. They weren't even the first. They were probably the last. And they may not have even abandoned the thing at all based on your definition of abandoned.
Feel free to disagree.
This was in part prompted by two people I very much enjoy otherwise (a certain reporter known for NX leaks and a certain Bidoof) more or less saying Ubisoft abandoned the Wii U. So, I decided to spend a half hour or so tabulating the total amount of games published or developed, solely or otherwise, by all the major 3rd party publishers. THQ was left out because they have an excuse (bankruptcy right after Wii U launch), while Deep Silver was excluded because they only started publishing games for the Wii U this year.
Methodology was not exactly scientific but as best I could manage. I used the "List of Wii U software" Wikipedia page. Apps were excluded, as well as any games that never actually came out or were merely another publishers game being handled by another in the EU/JP. That last one really only applies to a few Bandai Namco games that they handled the EU/JP publishing of. I recorded total number of games as well as the beginning and end of their support. I also recorded the last release date of any "non-cash cows". This is basically my way of categorizing games like Skylanders, LEGO, and Just Dance that were supported until now while the "real" support ended a long time ago. That only ended up applying to Activision, WB, and Ubisoft. Dates were chosen based off most recent US/JP release (sorry Europe).
Analysis will come later, but here is the data. First, a breakdown of the number of games per publisher and what those games generally are:
2K/Take Two: 1 (NBA 2K13)
Activision: 25 (2 CoDs, 5 Skylanders, 16 useless ports/licensed garbage/shovelware)
Bandai Namco: 17 (possibly 19, 4 were either just developed/co-developed for Nintendo, only 10 released in West, games from other publishers that they published in EU/JP for excluded)
Capcom: 5 (2 are Monster Hunter games, only one of which came out in the US (each successive update/release of Frontier G not counted)
Deep Silver: 3 (1 still in development, 1 is EU eShop exclusive, 1 is Mighty No. 9)
EA: 4 (2 sports games, other 2 were ports of games from a few months prior, no games released outside of 4 month launch window)
Koei Tecmo: 6 (2 were published in JP as Koei Tecmo while as Nintendo elsewhere, 1 was solely published by Nintendo
Konami: 0 (1 was planned by apparently never released. Some board game.)
Sega: 8 (2 Mario & Sonic games (which were published by Nintendo), 3 other Sonic games (1 racer, 1 okay/not great, 1 Boom))
Ubisoft: 22 (7 Just Dance games (plus 1 released only in Japan published by Nintendo))
WB Games: 17 (3 Batman games, 9 Lego games, 10 if you count Lego Undercover which Nintendo published by TT is owned by WB)
As you can see, there's only 4 publishers with a total amount of games in the double digits: Activision, WB, Ubisoft, and Namco Bandai. Activision comes out the winner with 25 games released to date, followed by Ubisoft with 22, while Bandai Namco and WB both bring in 17 games. Take out Just Dance for Ubisoft and you have 15 games. Take out LEGO for WB and you have 7-8 games total. Take out all the Skylanders and licensed garbage for Activision and you have 4. That makes the new ranking 17 Namco, 17 Ubisoft, 7-8 WB, and 4 Activision. But sure, Ubisoft only make Just Dance games for Wii U.
As for range of support, take a look at this here spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lWHkqaa8BUHv0IosXv6FXCHAC97BPCgYytX0EOcKxx0/edit#gid=0 Figure 1 shows the total amount of time supported, with cash cows included, while Figure 2 shows the total without cash cows.
Now, what does this all say? Well, in terms of long-term support, Ubisoft is still supporting the damn thing. Of course, though, that's all just because of Just Dance. Apparently that's not "real" support. Which is where Figure 2 comes in. I've removed Just Dance, Skylanders, and LEGO from the equation. When you do that, Ubisoft finds itself right in the middle. Better than half, worse than the other. It is #5 out of a possible 10. Sure, you can take 2K and Konami out because they didn't even bother trying, but that still puts Ubisoft at 5 out of 8.
That's not exactly great numbers, but keep in mind that the only western publisher that supported the Wii U better is Activision, and that's only because of Guitar Hero Live (which was on EVERYTHING, even your freaking phone). Take that and licensed garbage like the Peanuts Movie game and a The Voice game and you get taken back to 6/24/14 with Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark. Doing that knocks Activision back to between WB and Ubisoft. Which would make Ubisoft the best supporter in the West and the only one to support for 2 years, if ever so exactly.
Of course, I find it ridiculous that we argue about what constitutes "real" support to begin with. You may not care about Just Dance whatsoever but clearly someone does because they keep releasing it on Wii U. Those are people buying games for their Wii U that aren't just published by Nintendo. Whether or not you care about them is irrelevant. It just comes across as elitist.
Now, I'm not saying Ubisoft didn't "abandon" the Wii U (even if that's what the thread title says). It's obvious just by looking at their overall releases that over time Wii U stopped showing up, barring the occasional Just Dance game. But that is hardly unique to Ubisoft. Literally every other Western publisher did the same crap.
But it's not like they did it for no reason. In the early days the system numbers were low and the software sales were even lower. Not to mention the fact the console was vastly underpowered compared to it's Sony and Microsoft sibling. So ports were out the window, leaving only games that didn't require much processing power and/or completely new games for the Wii U. Which they totally should have done from a creative sense but it also clearly made zero business sense to. I'm all for publishers and studio making products at a possible loss for the prestige but games do not function the way the film industry does. Your game needs to be marketable and profitable.
TL;DR Ubisoft was not the only Western publisher to "abandon" the Wii U. They weren't even the first. They were probably the last. And they may not have even abandoned the thing at all based on your definition of abandoned.
Feel free to disagree.
