Remember when the Wii U started? Ubisoft were one of the top publishers supporting the new console, which was of course a brave move considering that to many mainstream markets, Nintendo have a “kiddy” attribute. Ubisoft have announced the obvious that their Assassin Creed IV game on the Wii U “sold in very small numbers”, but how small is this?
The Wii U consisted of 3% of Ubisoft sales. It shouldn’t be any surprise to gamers, the Wii U itself has been selling poorly and it wasn’t until the release of Mario Kart 8 that there was a significant (yet not enough) boost in sales. Now, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot revealed this information in a GamesInformer interview:
“It’s very simple. What we see is that Nintendo customers don’t buy Assassin’s Creed. Last year, we sold in very small numbers. What we see is that they are very interested in Just Dance, very interested by other kinds of games. So what we are trying to do is to focus more on the types of games they are interested in. [Watch Dogs] is coming to Wii U. It will be the only mature game we publish on it.”
I understand Ubisoft’s decision to now not support the Wii U with “mature games”, their sales statistics didn’t provide any reason as to why Ubisoft should even try to continue, and there’s no point for Ubisoft to suffer to help to support a platform which appears to be a lost cause to third-party developers.
However, did Ubisoft even try enough? Admittedly, interest in Assassins Creed have been decreasing with each annual release – so that’s a con to sales right there. Any Assassins Creed fan has already built their foundation of interest on their Playstation or Xbox console, so the likelihood is that they’d purchase any newer games on their usual consoles and NOT the Wii U. Also the Wii U versions weren’t granted with the privileges of regular updates, DLC and less bugs which the other consoles were given, so why would people want to purchase a half-assed copy of the game?
Ubisoft should have expanded their market more, rather than just particular focus on Assassins Creed, they should have tried porting other mature games and checking if it’s just the Wii U audience aren’t interested in Assassins creed, but could have interest in other mature games such as their earlier released Far Cry 3 or their now delayed Watch Dogs. Instead, the inconvenience of the timing of releases of games (Assassins Creed III for the Wii U was a late release, Watch Dogs will be a late release, if Far Cry 3 was ported – it would have also been a late release) and the lack of selection, Ubisoft have concluded their decision in a very narrow-minded view. There were hardly any Wii U owners at the time, hardly any worthwhile Mature games to choose from – what did they honestly expect?
To be honest, Ubsiofts’ discontinuation of support doesn’t affect me too much. I’ve become bored with what is becoming a stale Assassins Creed franchise, I just await for super cheap prices on PC to arise and purchase the game at a later date. Watch Dogs didn’t captivate me as much as I expected it to, the only genuine interest I have right now for an upcoming Ubisoft game is Far Cry 4, which I doubt Ubisoft would have ever cared to take time to port back graphical capabilities to run on the Wii U in the first place!
What’s your opinion on this new revelation from Ubisoft? Did you ever intend to play certain mature games on the Wii U if they were available?
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