Ubisoft has “big plans for Wii U”, interest in being “the number one-third party” on console
Ubisoft has “big plans for Wii U” according to Tony Key, Ubisoft’s SVP of sales and marketing. Key outlined the company’s interest in the console in an interview with Gamasutra.
Key said:
“We have big plans for Wii U. Our intention is to be the number one third-party on Wii U, just like we were on Kinect and just like we were on 3DS.
“We’ve always had a really close relationship with Nintendo, so I’d venture to say that we did have an advantage in getting dev kits earlier than other people. I’m not saying we got them earlier than everyone, but I do think we got them early.
“They came to us and asked us to make Red Steel. The thing is, once these dev kits show up in the building, you’ve got these other teams peeking around the curtain going, ‘Hey, what’s that?’ Before you know it, there’s three projects being developed for the Wii in that one room, and then another guy from another studio just happens to be visiting and brings back some ideas…”
Key also mentioned how Ubisoft was able to prepare a significant amount of titles for the Wii’s launch. This stemmed from developer interest when Red Steel was being made for the system. Eventually Ubisoft ended up with seven launch games for the Wii.
According to Key:
“We do encourage that kind of experimentation, especially if we think the platform is commercially viable. [Ubisoft CEO] Yves Guillemot will say, ‘Let’s put a few guys on it, and let’s try it.’ So if they come up with a great idea, then we’ll roll with it.”
“That’s what happened on the Wii; we were so engaged with it after getting the kits for Red Steel that suddenly Rayman came out of that, and before you knew it we had seven titles in the launch window because the dev studios got so excited about the hardware.”
