Ubisoft admits “We made mistakes on Wii” and promises better games
Games publisher Ubisoft was one of the first third parties to recognize the potential of Nintendo’s Wii console as they saw and demoed the controller before E3 2005. Back then Ubisoft Paris took their idea directly to Nintendo head honchos Iwata and Miyamoto, and were given the go ahead to make Red Steel. Since Ubisoft worked “closely†with Nintendo’s engineers in Japan, they backed the Wii with a lot of titles like its exclusive launch games, Red Steel and Rayman Raving Rabbids that are now million-sellers.
Ubisoft’s other efforts were quick ports of previously released games like Far Cry and Splinter Cell, with fewer features than their other console counterparts, did poorly both from a critical and sales perspective. In an interview with German news magazine Spiegel, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot and European head Alain Corre admitted that Ubisoft was too quick to rush these titles to the market.
“We made mistakes [on Wii],” they told the magazine. According to Spiegel, Ubisoft wanted to be first to capitalize on Wii and in its haste to release product Ubisoft sacrificed the quality of the titles. Ubisoft has reportedly learned from its mistakes, though, and is promising that the quality of its forthcoming Wii projects will be significantly better.
IGN translated that the interview says Mr. Corre told the magazine he is not content with sales of PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360. “Sony should set a new price point soon if it still wants to sell a satisfactory amount of units this year,” he said, adding, “Microsoft, too, by the way.”
Spiegel is one of Europe’s most influential news magazines with a weekly circulation of about one million. The publication’s recent interview with Ubisoft’s heads was part of a bigger piece entitled “Shelf Warmer PlayStation 3: Desperately Seeking Players,” which took a very critical look at the underwhelming sales of Sony’s technological goliath and concludes that this holiday business will decide if Sony and Microsoft can reach the mass market.
Overall this is very good news for us gamers. Sure there’ll be sequels like Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 and a port of the next Splinter Cell, but now Ubisoft seems to be saying they’ll the spend time needed to make all new releases good instead of rushed.
