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Ubisoft did not abandon the Wii U.
- Thread starter VoltySquirrel
- Start date
LordRaptor
Member
They'd dropped it before it had even been released.
Outside of Criterion going to great lengths - and apparently fighting against EAs wishes to do so - their releases were at best perfunctory launch window titles, and we can only say "4 months of support" due to Criterion; the rest of the titles had 'bare minimum contractual obligation' written all over them.
Unprecedentedly bad sales happened.
EA always gets shit from Nintendo fanboys despite there being other companies that never did anything for WiiU and despite that time has proven them completely right.
TDLink
Member
Can't really say this when they have a new retail release coming in a couple weeks, have released several other retail releases this year, as well as some digital only ones. And the big AAA Zelda game is still going to come to the system.
They've definitely pulled resources off of the system to put towards NX (and they've done the same with 3DS), but they haven't abandoned it completely.
I actually feel like this "last" year of Wii U they have supported much better than the last year of Wii.
Right. I find the whole thing puzzling. They said they crap about an unprecedented partnership and then literally nothing. Not even a throw you a bone crap Madden port. Nothing. Someone at Nintendo pissed off someone at EA, or something.
Zombegoast
Member
They re released Fifa 12 as 13 on Wii U and Madden 13 was missing features. Of course bad sales are going to happen.
LordRaptor
Member
You don't need to be 'a fanboy' to look at the time frame involved on those decisions and see how suspect it looks to be purely sales based.
Ubi / Acti / WB - those are purely sales based decisions. Those made sense. Launch window titles, follow through on committed resources, gradual withdrawal and reallocation of projects over a 24 month period. That's what third party publishing looks like.
All support completely gone within one Financial Quarter? Nope.
It's pretty unreasonable to expect third party to stay on board and lose money when the console is doing as badly as the Wii U have.
If the games aren't making them money, there's no point in porting them to the system.
It's a bit of a vicious circle for Nintendo with fewer games leading to fewer hardware sales, but it is what it is.
If the games aren't making them money, there's no point in porting them to the system.
It's a bit of a vicious circle for Nintendo with fewer games leading to fewer hardware sales, but it is what it is.
In hindsight, EA's decision feels oddly prescient.
chrominance
Member
It took a long time for me to parse what the OP was trying to say (and yes, the thread title did not help). I thought it was genuinely trying to say that Ubisoft was totally making and selling lots of non-Just Dance games well into the Wii U's lifespan and whatever you guys are all wrong when you say they won't do the same for the NX. And yet the OP also shows that about two years into the Wii U's lifespan, non-Just Dance releases dry up.
And then later in the OP, it says that okay fine, Ubisoft DID stop releasing games, but they stuck it out longer than about half the publishers out there according to one of the charts posted. Which to me sounds like Ubisoft abandoning the platform?
Only later did I realize that the original assumption the OP was trying to combat wasn't "the Wii U lost a lot of third-party support early, and that includes Ubisoft"; it was "Ubisoft abandoned the Wii U because they are jerks and therefore they are lying about their NX support." I didn't know people still felt that way about Ubisoft. I would agree with the OP, except I would say that almost everyone abandoned the platform, not just Ubisoft. Moreover, it was probably the right business decision for all of them.
And then later in the OP, it says that okay fine, Ubisoft DID stop releasing games, but they stuck it out longer than about half the publishers out there according to one of the charts posted. Which to me sounds like Ubisoft abandoning the platform?
Only later did I realize that the original assumption the OP was trying to combat wasn't "the Wii U lost a lot of third-party support early, and that includes Ubisoft"; it was "Ubisoft abandoned the Wii U because they are jerks and therefore they are lying about their NX support." I didn't know people still felt that way about Ubisoft. I would agree with the OP, except I would say that almost everyone abandoned the platform, not just Ubisoft. Moreover, it was probably the right business decision for all of them.
LordRaptor
Member
True, but I don't think the WiiUs sales would have been worse off if EA hadn't publicly pulled all support within 6 months of its launch, or that other third parties wouldn't have seen any better sales if the largest third party publisher hadn't declared it DOA.
In retrospect, EA did literally everything possible to ensure it was stillborn and that it was not worth considering for people who enjoy third party titles.
Up to and including staff openly posting that it is a piece of shit that is worse than a 360 and that Nintendo are a dead man walking.
Bad sales isn't the right word in this case, more like abysmal.
The ps3 had even worse problems in the beginning - games running like shit and/or missing features like online.
The 2nd Madden (meaning one year after launch) e.g. ran @ 30fps vs 60 on 360.
And i remember EA saying they weren't happy with ps3 software sales.
And based on what i have seen these games sold a whole lot better than their WiiU games.
Iirc the NfS port that was hyped by Nintendo fans and the press as the best version sold <10k first month NPD.
It's also not as if EA games were an outlier and other comparable 3rd party games sold good.
Could they have invested more money in their U ports? - Sure.
Would that have changed the long term outcome - No.
JetSetRadio
Banned
They won't make the same mistake again, I expect just dance/sing and monopoly at launch.
If it is indeed a casual success, they'll be the first to go all in though.
The issues that Nintendo Ubisoft is multifaceted. Back in the Wii days Ubisoft used Wii and DS game profits to fund the development for PS3 and Xbox 360 games
Then, supposedly the Wii U ports only cost 1.3 million . Yves Guilemo stated the investment was minimum. However, later he goes on to say that everything was unprofitable on the Wii U. Backhand math (assuming that $20 is the retail margin that Ubisoft receive) would indicate that port would only need to sale 65,000 copies to break even. The Wii U titles Ubisoft release did move greater than 65,000 units.
Which implies that PS3 and Xbox 360 games were making them very little money in terms of net profit vs the Wii and DS. Yet, there were very little (if any) games released by Ubisoft on the Wii/DS that was had major backing vs the 360/PS3.Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemo said:
Then, supposedly the Wii U ports only cost 1.3 million . Yves Guilemo stated the investment was minimum. However, later he goes on to say that everything was unprofitable on the Wii U. Backhand math (assuming that $20 is the retail margin that Ubisoft receive) would indicate that port would only need to sale 65,000 copies to break even. The Wii U titles Ubisoft release did move greater than 65,000 units.
LordRaptor
Member
So you see how how dropping support before your accountants have even started filing their returns is unusual then?
How "prescient" a company must be to make that call so very early on?
I don't know, There was a lot of hype and real excitement for Rayman Legends when it was still exclusive and on schedule.
It was also coming out at a perfect time as there wasnt really any major competition and the system was facing one of its first droughts.
Pushing it back definitely hurt its real potential on Wii U.
It still sold the best on that platform iirc but the damage was already done.
At release, there were other better games for the other platforms to look forward to and Nintendo fans simply lost interest on it and/or boycotted the game.
EA expected more sales from the ps3 launch, but they were far from the WiiU sales and they probably made money with their ps3 ports.
And in contrast to the U it was obvious ps3 software sales would grow.
EA released their last game @ the end of march, at a time where it was already visible that the U was far from the mega-hit Nintendo expected.
There was little incentive for EA to keep trying and loosing money while doing so when they knew that in half a year the next-gen consoles would launch.
Consoles that would make ports to the U impossible anyway.
LordRaptor
Member
So for every other publisher and for every other previous console, where it takes at least a year to restructure and change focus because videogames are a hugely complicated effort of project management, but EA and EA alone can make that call in less than 3 months, and only on this one particular console?
And there is nothing strange about that?
e:
To be 100% perfectly clear - I'm not saying that EA not supporting the WiiU is a bad decision - I am saying they had already made that decision before it had launched and any sales numbers had come in.
Eolz
Member
I'm french and
worked for Ubisoft
What focus?
The focus was never on the U, the U got some games that got made anyway.
You don't need that much people/investment to port something, it's not as if EA suddenly dissolved 150 men teams.
There was also nothing canceled by them afaik.
And who knows when EA decided what, EA also had an idea about the initial U shipment- and pre-order numbers.
I think this is too much black and white.
Why launch anything then and NfS 4 months later?
They probably kept loosing confidence (like everyone else) the nearer the launch came, cause it got more and more obvious that it wasn't close to being another Wii.
Zombegoast
Member
Didn't EA cancel a Crysis 3 port? Crytek was very excited about the system before release.
The problem was that the sales of their launch window games were so dire it made sense to drop it like a rock. None of their games sold enough to justify the cost of porting them so why carry on? They knew exactly what else was on the horizon from Nintendo, figured that it wasn't going to push enough hardware and made the decision there and then. And they were right. In the six months following the launch window they shipped just 200k hardware units in NA. By September of that year European retailers were returning unsold stock.
I don't doubt for one second that they had other stuff in the pipeline but when you're talking sub 10k LTD for an SKU it makes more sense to kill a 50% complete project dead than spend a single penny more on it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_U#Sales
It's sobering reading.
Iirc Crytek said they had Crysis 3 running on WiiU, but it was never officially announced.
Who knows how much work was needed, but according to Crytek neither EA nor Nintendo wanted to publish it ...
ZSaberLink
Media Create Maven
Actually if I remember correctly Ubisoft actually produced more games than Nintendo for Wii U from 2012-2013. They put a lot of stuff on it, even if it wasn't all stellar. Keep in mind that it includes things like Assassin's Creed III & IV.
Whatever, a SKU that released months late(thus missing when NFS:MW was actually marketed) , missing DLC and at FULL PRICE and EA had the nerve, to even further discount that SKU on other platform the week of release. Cry me a river.
LordRaptor
Member
Again; the problem with taking "EA dropped the WiiU because of sales" at face value is the timeline involved and the existence of other publishers.
Activision released 2 CoDs before making that business call, and at no point came out and publically announced they were ending all support.
Ubisoft released 2 ACs before making that business call, and at no point came out and publically announced they were ending all support.
WB released 2 Batman games before making that business call, and at no point came out and publically announced they were ending all support.
EA had their launch titles and a late port of NFS that was handled so badly that the founder of Criterion rage quit the company he founded and publically put EA on blast for how they treated it, and had publically announced they had dropped all support within 6 months of launch.
So... what? EA are smarter than everyone else? Acti / Ubi / WB are big Nintendo fanboys? EAs games sold so much worse than every other third parties?
Everything surrounding it - including EA employees publically insulting the WiiU on social media - reeks of there being bad blood behind the scenes between EA and Nintendo. Literally nothing about it suggests 'just business'.
Activision released 2 CoDs before making that business call, and at no point came out and publically announced they were ending all support.
Ubisoft released 2 ACs before making that business call, and at no point came out and publically announced they were ending all support.
WB released 2 Batman games before making that business call, and at no point came out and publically announced they were ending all support.
EA had their launch titles and a late port of NFS that was handled so badly that the founder of Criterion rage quit the company he founded and publically put EA on blast for how they treated it, and had publically announced they had dropped all support within 6 months of launch.
So... what? EA are smarter than everyone else? Acti / Ubi / WB are big Nintendo fanboys? EAs games sold so much worse than every other third parties?
Everything surrounding it - including EA employees publically insulting the WiiU on social media - reeks of there being bad blood behind the scenes between EA and Nintendo. Literally nothing about it suggests 'just business'.
axisofweevils
Holy crap! Today's real megaton is that more than two people can have the same first name.
Back in the day, there was the Wii U eShop / Origin rumour. I always wondered if there was any truth to that.
I've said it a few times but the idea that Nintendo would let an outside company handle (aspects of) their networking seemed like BS at the time but the core of Nintendo's network is being built in cooperation with DeNA now...
The huge problem with Ubisoft date is that the last title was "Watch Dogs" which was released on the Wii U on 11/18/2014. "Watch Dogs" was released 05/21/2014 on every other platform under the sun. Furthermore, "Watch Dogs" was going for less than $30 on all other platforms when Ubisoft released the game for full price(without DLC I may add). "Watch Dogs" receive mediocre reviews (partially due to being "hyped"). Ubisoft basically lied and say the delay was due to them wanting to due something with the GamePad. The Gamepad only had on-screen map.
I wouldn't call Ubisoft low cost investment "support". Especially considering what they [Ubisoft] launched with the 3DS when Nintendo deliberately gave third parties to opportunity to sell their games without Nintendo's first party competition.
I absolutely loved Rayman Origins when I played it on my Vita. I even ended up getting the plat. When I heard that Rayman Legends was going to be Wii U exclusive, that was one of the main reasons I got it at launch.
Needless to say, when I found out that not only was the game getting delayed to become multi-platform, but the "Wii U exclusive content" was hitting the Vita version, I was kinda pissed off. I'd say rightly so. I only ended up buying Rayman Legends once it hit clearance, and I ended up getting the Vita version down the line from a friend.
Needless to say, when I found out that not only was the game getting delayed to become multi-platform, but the "Wii U exclusive content" was hitting the Vita version, I was kinda pissed off. I'd say rightly so. I only ended up buying Rayman Legends once it hit clearance, and I ended up getting the Vita version down the line from a friend.
LordRaptor
Member
And on the EA side of things their 'platform within a platform' with EA Access on XBL.
I would agree. Totally anecdotally, I don't know a single person who owns a Wii U. And a lot of my friends owned a Wii and still play video games.
Mass_Pincup
Banned
That's not contradicting what I posted.
It could be that because the WiiU wasn't as successful as they expected, to minimise losses they asked Nintendo to promote the game in their place, Nintendo refused and Ubisoft decided to do the marketing campaign but for every platform which would bring them more money.
I'm going with GK on this, they're usually always on point.
Eolz
Member
Can't say anything about it, but no, you did a quick jump to conclusion from what I said.
If you look at it again, Nintendo promoted quite a bit Rayman Legends too, even after losing the exclusivity (more than Sony/MS for sure, and arguably as much if not more than Ubi). It's never as simple as what is said in some publications, even if Gamekult is indeed reliable.
edit: anyway on topic, Ubisoft abandoned the WiiU like nearly everybody else, and it's hard to blame them. They didn't try as hard as some like to believe though, despite their usual great launch support.
McGruber21
Member
I'm a Nintendo fan, and I would have "abandoned" the Wii U too! I mean studios don't greenlight sequels to movies that bomb. That's why you will never get a Ninja Turtles 3 or an Elektra 2. So why would a publisher keep putting games on a platform that clearly isn't taking off, let alone their individual game sales?
I'm looking forward to some 'core games being launched with the NX, and I think support from 3rd parties depends on how well the system does and those initial launch games. The people who bought Wii U were 'core gamers who already had a PS3/4 or Xbox to play games like Watch Dogs and COD on. That doesn't mean those games can't be on NX, but Nintendo has to make NX an appealing console to play COD, Resident Evil, etc.
I'm looking forward to some 'core games being launched with the NX, and I think support from 3rd parties depends on how well the system does and those initial launch games. The people who bought Wii U were 'core gamers who already had a PS3/4 or Xbox to play games like Watch Dogs and COD on. That doesn't mean those games can't be on NX, but Nintendo has to make NX an appealing console to play COD, Resident Evil, etc.
plagiarize
Banned
Zombi U was one of the best things on Wii U and it was a game that utilized a lot more of what made the system special than most Nintendo games. Rayman Legends used it really well too (once you realize that it's not a single player game).
I'm very happy Ubisoft supported the Wii U. And I don't doubt that had Zombi U found it's audience that we'd probably have had a couple more.
Even just those two games really helped show what was special about the system and they'll always be part of what I fondly remember about it.
I'm very happy Ubisoft supported the Wii U. And I don't doubt that had Zombi U found it's audience that we'd probably have had a couple more.
Even just those two games really helped show what was special about the system and they'll always be part of what I fondly remember about it.
Mass_Pincup
Banned
It was an hypothesis, not a conclusion but if you say so.
I don't doubt that the Wii U did horribly for Ubisoft, but I honestly find it interesting that they continued to support the Vita for longer than the Wii U. I'm definitely not complaining about it (I love my Vita) but were software sales just that much better?
tauroxd
Member
When viHuGi said "here" I think he meant here as in NeoGAF, which I think it is not possible.
Fancyarcher
Member
It's a really good platformer, but I can understand why you didn't buy it. Nintendo treated the game really poorly, since it was a third party game.
Fancyarcher
Member
Based off what I've seen, no not really. There were only a few Vita games that even cracked a million. It's just likely a case of Ubisoft having a better relationship with Sony, then Nintendo.
Could Vita being easier to develop for helped it any? I mean, at least for the Rayman games and Child of Light they had already ported the UbiArt engine to ARM for the mobile runners, right?
Fancyarcher
Member
Likely. Also portable games are often easier to develop. I'm actually pretty sure that Ubisoft supported the 3DS way more then they supported the Wii-U, for example (it also helps that the 3DS sold well).
As someone who bought a bunch of UBI games early on. It was hard not to be frustrated and angry with UBI.
The Rayman Legends move was especially bad. Since launching First on the WiiU would have done little to impact their sales on other platforms. Roughly 4M people owned a Wii U at the time compared to close to 200M PS360s and PS4s/XBones Yet launching late, essentially killed it on the Wii U as the narative became all about how UBI and other 3rd party publishers thought the WiiU was a turd and that no one should buy it.
The Wii U in general had issue early on with its OS, and software, however on some 3rd party games those loading times were horrendous. Splinter Cell: Blacklist was especially terrible, it would take almost a minute to load the Menu select screen.
Compare those games to Zombi U, a mediocre survival horror/shooter, built on a new IP, with a terribly generic title and it sold well at launch. Because it was new, fresh and didn't run terribly.
I don't buy that "Nintendo Customers" don't care about 3rd party games. I think it's more that Nintendo doesn't care about "Nintendo Customers" it feels like they want to sell games to 5 year olds who's parents won't let them have M and MA experiences. (Blah Blah Bayonetta Blah Blah) when the reality is most parents will let their 8 year olds play Destiny, CoD, Uncharted, GTA ect. Furthermore if those same Nintendo Parents are going to be spending hundreds of dollars on a gaming system. They will want experiences that aren't Kid Friendly.
Nintendos Sollution seems just to throw Mario and Link at everything. Which will just lead to over exposure and the devaluing of those brands.
It feels like modern gaming has reached a saturation point, where most platforms offer overwhelming choice. because of this Gaming is becoming less about what you want to play, and more about what you can't play
This is what's Killing Nintendo. If you wanted to play a racing game on PS4 yesterday there were 68 choices. I haven't checked the Wii U recently but that number is 9 according to meta critic and it includes a small amount of shovelware. Yet Cars and Racing games are incredibly popular with children. Just look at Mattel's long running success with the Hot Wheels series of toy cars.
Nintendo will be DOA as long as it continues to ignore that people want these genres. Nintendo have one of the Essential fighting games as a console exclusive. A large number of the FGC will buy Nintendo consoles whenever they are released. There are 3 Fighting games on the Wii U according to Metacritic which raises question. Why isn't Pokken on Metacritic? And where are all the other Fighting games.
After an exhaustive look on Wikipedia there are 12 total fighting games/beatem ups. there is shovelware. (Ben 10, Kung Fu Panda, Transformers ect) 2 are indies that were not released globally in June, then there are 5 serious fighters. Smash Bros,Pokken, Injustice, And 2 Tekken games.
2/5 of those games sold > 1 million copies on the Wii U.
The Rayman Legends move was especially bad. Since launching First on the WiiU would have done little to impact their sales on other platforms. Roughly 4M people owned a Wii U at the time compared to close to 200M PS360s and PS4s/XBones Yet launching late, essentially killed it on the Wii U as the narative became all about how UBI and other 3rd party publishers thought the WiiU was a turd and that no one should buy it.
The Wii U in general had issue early on with its OS, and software, however on some 3rd party games those loading times were horrendous. Splinter Cell: Blacklist was especially terrible, it would take almost a minute to load the Menu select screen.
Compare those games to Zombi U, a mediocre survival horror/shooter, built on a new IP, with a terribly generic title and it sold well at launch. Because it was new, fresh and didn't run terribly.
I can't remember where I read this, so I won't pass it off as fact. However there was some information circulating the Internet around 2013 that Devs were having problems with cross threading on the WiiU CPU, and that most of those early ports were running on just over 1/3rd of the WiiU's total power. Which was terrible for an already underpowered system
I don't buy that "Nintendo Customers" don't care about 3rd party games. I think it's more that Nintendo doesn't care about "Nintendo Customers" it feels like they want to sell games to 5 year olds who's parents won't let them have M and MA experiences. (Blah Blah Bayonetta Blah Blah) when the reality is most parents will let their 8 year olds play Destiny, CoD, Uncharted, GTA ect. Furthermore if those same Nintendo Parents are going to be spending hundreds of dollars on a gaming system. They will want experiences that aren't Kid Friendly.
Nintendos Sollution seems just to throw Mario and Link at everything. Which will just lead to over exposure and the devaluing of those brands.
It feels like modern gaming has reached a saturation point, where most platforms offer overwhelming choice. because of this Gaming is becoming less about what you want to play, and more about what you can't play
This is what's Killing Nintendo. If you wanted to play a racing game on PS4 yesterday there were 68 choices. I haven't checked the Wii U recently but that number is 9 according to meta critic and it includes a small amount of shovelware. Yet Cars and Racing games are incredibly popular with children. Just look at Mattel's long running success with the Hot Wheels series of toy cars.
Nintendo will be DOA as long as it continues to ignore that people want these genres. Nintendo have one of the Essential fighting games as a console exclusive. A large number of the FGC will buy Nintendo consoles whenever they are released. There are 3 Fighting games on the Wii U according to Metacritic which raises question. Why isn't Pokken on Metacritic? And where are all the other Fighting games.
After an exhaustive look on Wikipedia there are 12 total fighting games/beatem ups. there is shovelware. (Ben 10, Kung Fu Panda, Transformers ect) 2 are indies that were not released globally in June, then there are 5 serious fighters. Smash Bros,Pokken, Injustice, And 2 Tekken games.
2/5 of those games sold > 1 million copies on the Wii U.
endlessflood
Member
UBISOFT WASN'T SHOUTING. It was just saying.
That's kinda related to one of the problems I say that doomed the Wii U at launch. Yes, the Wii U is notably stronger than the PS3/360 in many aspects, but it wasn't strong enough to outset the difference in optimization for many companies PS3/360 ports of their engines and their new Wii U ones. As a result, a lot of early games looked bad and ran even worse - tying into the narrative that the Wii U was simply on par with last-gen at best. It's definitely not the only reason I think the Wii U failed, but it certainly contributed to it.
Eolz
Member
Well I'm not sure what you meant with that post then, sorry about that.
The sales numbers are in Ubisoft's financial results regarding both platforms. Sales aren't everything though (profit, relationship, deals, etc).
Ubisoft actually supported the WiiU more than the 3DS. Both in terms of quantity and quality. They never really cared about that platform, like most western publishers.
VoltySquirrel
Member
That's actually good to hear.
345triangle
Member
Ubisoft is sitting on finished Wii U games waiting for larger install base
this was over two years ago!
OP is a weird strawman argument but i'll be that strawman. openly not releasing games that are finished because you don't think the system has enough users is about as close to outright abandonment as i can imagine.
this was over two years ago!
OP is a weird strawman argument but i'll be that strawman. openly not releasing games that are finished because you don't think the system has enough users is about as close to outright abandonment as i can imagine.