GameStop Italy seems to believe Watch Dogs has been cancelled for Wii U
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Rumors, Wii U | 20 Comments
The release of Watch Dogs on Wii U may be in jeopardy.
GameStop locations in Italy have been telling consumers that the game will not be available for Nintendo’s platform and are being advised to move their pre-orders to a different version. Additionally, the retailer is says Ubisoft cancelled Watch Dogs on Wii U. It’s supposedly no longer in GameStop’s database as well.
These tidbits don’t come straight from Ubisoft, but there is still a reason to be concerned about Watch Dogs’ status. Has Ubisoft truly canned the Wii U version?
Thanks to Timo for the tip.
More: Ubisoft, Watch Dogs
Watch Dogs’ budget was over $68 million prior to delay
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 20 Comments
With game development costs on the rise, it should come as no surprise that Watch Dogs has costed tens of millions for Ubisoft. Specifically, executive producer Stéphane Decroix told French business publication Challenges last year (before the end of year delay) that the game’s budget was in excess of 50 million euros. That amounts to about $68 million.
More: Stéphane Decroix, Ubisoft, Watch Dogs
Watch Dogs screenshots
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Screenshots, Wii U | 0 comments
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Ubisoft says Watch Dogs’ engine was originally built for Driver
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 0 comments
North American Ubisoft president Laurent Detoc North American shared an interesting Watch Dogs development tidbit while speaking with IGN as aprt of a new interview.
According to Detoc, Watch Dogs was originally built for the Driver series. The initial project was initially scrapped after Ubisoft wasn’t satisfied with its direction. Eventually, the company took some of the work that had been used for the cancelled game’s driving engine and used that for Watch Dogs.
Detoc’s comments in full:
“Watch Dogs wasn’t started as Watch Dogs. They were working on a driving engine, working on something. We had the Driver license. This was years ago. Then we were thinking, ‘no, this is not the way we want to go with a driving game,’ so we cancelled that and restarted. It’s not like Watch Dogs started as Watch Dogs. The Watch Dogs project was initially another game. At some point it changed. That’s at least three years ago, and then the Watch Dogs project reused some of the work that had been done on this driving engine.
It’s not that Driver became Watch Dogs, so much as the driving game we made was a driving game. The decision was made that there was another driving game being made and this one should be an open-world game where the guy comes out of the car and does other things. Then the team decides to reshuffle itself entirely. A few other people come in, a new creative director, and then they start a new game. I wouldn’t say that Driver became Watch Dogs, because that’s not true. That’s not really what happens. What happens is that a game gets cancelled, and then you take pieces of that game to make a new one. We could have had another driving engine from another team in another place, and then it would have been used by the Watch Dogs team.”
More: Driver, Laurent Detoc, Ubisoft, Watch Dogs
Ubisoft further discusses Watch Dogs delay
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 1 Comment
Ubisoft has once again discussed the decision to delay Watch Dogs. The publisher’s North America president, Laurent Detoc, spoke about the move as part of an interview with IGN.
He said:
“It’s a very intense decision. I think one of the fascinating things about this industry is that you can go from genius to idiot in an extremely short time frame. These are some of those moments, where you’re riding sky high on Watch Dogs or Rayman, and then suddenly you have to break it to the outside world, and sometimes even convince the inside people. Not everybody agrees. You have to say, ‘this is in the best interest of the product, to do this,’ because at the end of the day we’re going to be able to do this extra fine tuning.”
“Some games, you just can’t make them that much better because of how they’ve been progressing. Part of the decision to delay Watch Dogs is also that,” he said. “We know it’s not where we want it to be. Can it get there? What will it take to get there? That’s why it takes a longer process. But in August we really thought we were going to have that game at launch.”
Watch Dogs was originally slated for a November launch. However, Ubisoft announced a new spring 2014 release window back in October.
