Ubisoft says ZombiU wasn’t profitable and no sequel planned, EA worried about lack of people playing online
Posted on July 8, 2013 by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Podcast Stories, Wii U
GamesIndustry recently caught up with three major third-party publishers to discuss Wii U. Ubisoft, Activision, and EA shared a few thoughts about the console while speaking with the outlet.
One of the more troubling items to emerge from the discussion concerns ZombiU. The game wasn’t even close to being profitable, according to Ubisoft. The company therefore has no plans or interest in making a sequel currently. ZombiU’s poor performance was also one of the reasons why Rayman Legends turned into a multiplatform title.
You can find commentary from the three publishers below.
Yves Guillemot, Chairman and CEO of Ubisoft
“We must find a way to ensure the creativity of those games could have a big enough audience. We hope it will take off. At the moment, we’ve said ‘let’s do through Christmas and see where we are from there.'”
Eric Hirshberg, president and CEO of Activision Publishing
“We came to the table with a robust slate. But we have no announcements now.”
EA’s Peter Moore
“We were there with four games for them [at launch]. It’s been a disappointment when you look at sell-through and, as a company, we have to be very judicious where we deploy our resources.”
“The lack of online engagement that we see on Wii U [is troubling]. It’s so integral to what we do. They’re so small it’s hardly worth running the servers. It seems like a box that’s out of sync with the future of EA – which is one that gives a real social feel to our games. The Wii U feels like an offline experience right now.”
