During its investors call last week, Ubisoft provided an update about its financial status regarding Wii U.
CEO Yves Guillemot started out by noting the console’s “slow launch”. While the company is “satisfied by our market share in the US and Europe”, Guillemot said that its “performance was impacted by low-tie ratios.”
A slew of new first-party Wii U titles were announced during a Nintendo Direct last month. Guillemot feels that some of these releases will “boost its potential.”
“Regarding Wii U, while we are satisfied by our market share in the US and Europe – at respectively 20% and 27% – our performance was impacted by low-tie ratios. Nintendo has recently announced the coming release of some of their great brands on Wii U, and we believe it will boost its potential.”
Maestro Interactive Games has three Wii U eShop titles in the pipeline. Along with the previously announced Super Ubi Land made by Notion Games, Maestro has announced Fade into Darkness and Cosmic Highway for the platform.
Fade into Darkness’ first trailer will debut during GDC. Cosmic Highway will also be getting a trailer during Maestro’s Kickstarter campaign.
Zen Studios will have information about the Wii U version of Star Wars Pinball (which will be heading to Zen Pinball 2) in the future.
If you listen to the podcast you know that I go on reddit quite a bit, and today while surfing along the front page I noticed that in the Wii U subreddit people were discussing how Ancel and his crew are protesting the delay of Rayman: Legends. The top comment in that thread? Someone was trying to get an online protest going that they wonderfully termed “We Love Rayman!”:
“I’ll be making a collage with everybody’s picture and send a thank you to Ubisoft’s developers. The point is to make an echo to Ubisoft, show we do support Rayman, just not their decision.” – Reddit user ‘SuitMyPants’, who has a great username
He asks that people send photos of themselves supporting Rayman to [email protected], and when he gets enough he’ll put them all together in a collage for the developers to see. I’m not sure if this will change Ubisoft’s decision (maybe we’ll get another exclusive demo!), but at least it’ll get them to think twice before doing something like this in the future!
Not to mention that it’ll give the developers a nice warm tingly feeling. Send your photos to the address above if you want to participate! And don’t use a bunch of swear words condemning Ubisoft. That’ll just make you seem like a big jerk who is full of baloney.
Wii U may not have obtained the same sort of success as the Wii did at launch, but it was by no means a disaster. Since then, though, sales have fallen off.
GameStop CFO Rob Lloyd spoke about the Wii U’s performance at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference earlier today. While he noted that the system’s launch “performed at expectation”, interest has waned.
Lloyd said there are a “variety of theories as to why that might be.” One big reason is the lack of a true “blockbuster” – in other words, a system seller.
Lloyd’s comments on Wii U sales in full:
“We were pleased with the allocation [of Wii U units] that we got through the launch. I think for us, it performed at expectation. I think what what you’re [now] seeing is the interest has not been to the overall level that [Nintendo] had hoped for. And it’s not performing like the Wii did. There are a variety of theories as to why that might be. But among them is there hasn’t been the blockbuster from Nintendo. So Nintendo I think understands the need to have that first-party software available to drive Wii U sales.”
Nintendo has some heavy hitters on the way – it’s just a matter of when big titles will be released. We know Wind Waker HD is due out this fall, but something like Mario Kart or that new 3D Mario could boost sales as well.
This week’s Famitsu review scores are as follows:
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (PS3) – 10/10/10/9
Tokyo Yamanote Boys Portable (PSP) – 8/8/7/7
Desert Kingdom Portable (PSP) – 7/8/7/8
Grisaia no Kajitsu: Le Fruit De La Grisaia (PSP) – 7/8/7/8
Tank! Tank! Tank! (Wii U) – 8/7/7/6
Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic (3DS) – 7/6/6/7
It’s currently unknown as to what lies ahead for Puddle developer Neko Entertainment. Having said that, you can be rest assured that the indie studio is busy creating “several games on many platforms.” Wii U is fortunately included in those plans.
Discussing Neko Entertainment’s lineup, the company said:
“Yes, we are working on several games on many platforms. The Nintendo Wii U will be one of these platforms ! But I cannot tell you more at the moment!”
