Ubisoft CEO says ZombiU was not even close to profitable, no plans/desires for a sequel. - Polidicks

[URL="http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-07-08-does-nintendo-stand-a-chance-this-holiday"]http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-07-08-does-nintendo-stand-a-chance-this-holiday[/URL] [QUOTE]Yves Guillemot, Chairman and CEO of Ubisoft, is typically one of the biggest proponents of new systems, but betting big on the Wii U didn't work out well for the company. ZombiU, one of the most popular launch titles for the system with players, was not profitable, he says. Not even close. As such, he says, there are no plans (or even desire) for a sequel. It was, in fact, because of that game's performance that Ubisoft decided to make Rayman Legends a multiplatform game.[/QUOTE] Damn, can only hope the Wii U does better when more games come out.

You know it's not a good sign when one of the most popular games for the WiiU wasn't even profitable.

I tried this game out. It was boring, repetitive, needlessly tedious, and had the worst combat. Ubisoft should've stuck with Rayman and should've stayed away from a big risk title like this.

[QUOTE=milkandcooki;41368534]I tried this game out. It was boring, repetitive, needlessly tedious, and had the worst combat. Ubisoft should've stuck with Rayman and should've stayed away from a big risk title like this.[/QUOTE] You gotta take risks to get popular. [sp]But that wasn't the case of ZombiU[/sp]

[QUOTE=MrDestroyer;41368600]You gotta take risks to get popular. [sp]But that wasn't the case of ZombiU[/sp][/QUOTE] Sometimes having a, forgive me for my sins, "gimmicky" game that doesn't really do anything interesting isn't a good risk. My guess is that we're going to see a lot of games like this during the first few years of the Wii U, One, and PS4's lifecycles.

The game was okay, but in the end it was not good enough and now it sits in a box full of games.

The combat was awful. The Wii U controller mechanics were pretty fun to use though.

If the multiplayer was online or if they had some sort of coop mode the game could have been somewhat better, and of course better combat would have helped. But I got 40 hours out of the game and enjoyed it. But since I had to wipe my Wii U's hard drive I may play through it again and hopefully die less than I did in my first play through.

[QUOTE=milkandcooki;41368534]I tried this game out. It was boring, repetitive, needlessly tedious, and had the worst combat. Ubisoft should've stuck with Rayman and should've stayed away from a big risk title like this.[/QUOTE] So people complain that companies are always milking their IP's and not trying new things. And then when one of them tries something new they get told to stick to milking their IP's?

[QUOTE=Keychain;41368835]So people complain that companies are always milking their IP's and not trying new things. And then when one of them tries something new they get told to stick to milking their IP's?[/QUOTE] Outside of the Rabbid games, Rayman has only had 4 other games

[QUOTE=IliekBoxes;41368870]Outside of the Rabbid games, Rayman has only had 4 other games[/QUOTE] Actually, there's 9 Rayman games. There's 8 if you exclude the Rayman game about learning :v:

Apparently the budget for this title was low, but they underwent a platform change (It started out as a 360 Game) and then they basically remade the game twice. (Once as "Killer Freaks" and Once as a Rabbids game) Switching to a whole new platform and changing the game twice isn't exactly cheap... Although apparently the game sold badly and it's hard to get worldwide figures of it. Apparently the game only sold 150k copies worldwide? But this game is the one with the most attach rate of any 3rd party title. But then that conflicts with reports that Capcom was happy with sales figures for MH3U on Wii U and they've never released how many copies that game sold, and that game slightly boosted sales of the system, so wouldn't it be safe to say that MH3U sold a lot more than 150k? Idk. Zombi U either sold really badly or Ubisoft spent way more than they said they did. Or both.

[QUOTE=Keychain;41368835]So people complain that companies are always milking their IP's and not trying new things. And then when one of them tries something new they get told to stick to milking their IP's?[/QUOTE] I'm not complaining? I'm saying that the risk that they took was not very successful. They should have taken a DIFFERENT risk.

[QUOTE=Keychain;41368835]So people complain that companies are always milking their IP's and not trying new things. And then when one of them tries something new they get told to stick to milking their IP's?[/QUOTE] Im not concerned over them trying something new, its just that they fell flat on their face when they did

It's not bad of a game, just they should of added co-op or something.

[QUOTE=robotman5;41369092]It's not bad of a game, just they should of added co-op or something.[/QUOTE] They probably should've just released Rayman first and refined Zombi U and released it later rather than the other way around. Rayman simply has more appeal and apparently Rayman Origins sold a lot better on Wii than it did on the other consoles so keeping it exclusive would've made more sense in that regard and there were people waiting for the game to come out just to buy a Wii U. Meanwhile, there are people out there who refuse to play Zombi U because they think it's [I]too[/I] scary.

Well that answers the official response to the prototype the development team did for a sequel as a pitch. He never did release what happened after the meeting. Also I am wondering what the estimated numbers were for the game pre-release. If it was really not that profitable the development team wouldn't have even bothered in making a prototype.

One-Life mode is pretty much the only way to play this game, standard is just awful and repetitive. The narrative makes more sense, too.

[QUOTE=milkandcooki;41369008]I'm not complaining? I'm saying that the risk that they took was not very successful. They should have taken a DIFFERENT risk.[/QUOTE] Well that's the thing about taking a risk; sometimes it's not going to work out in your favor. I'd rather have them make a game like ZombiU and not succeed than not take the risk in the first place. When you get to be as large as Ubisoft/EA/Activision, it's good to take risks as you can take the hit if it fails. Hell, look at EA back in 2008 with Mirror's Edge and Dead Space 1; that was a risk for them and it ended up working.

I actually enjoyed the game. Especially when I had a friend over and we did the multiplayer. We put at least 20 hours into killing each other. The explosive zombies were incredibly cheap and hilarious.

[QUOTE=Amplified;41370009]I actually enjoyed the game. Especially when I had a friend over and we did the multiplayer. We put at least 20 hours into killing each other. The explosive zombies were incredibly cheap and hilarious.[/QUOTE] The multiplayer was probably the best part of the game. Imagine if it was online with two or three survivors and a single zombie master.

I really liked the debut trailer for Zombiu it had a littie story in it [video=youtube;pPHPd1EP_c8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPHPd1EP_c8[/video]

It sucks that things aren't going so well for the Wii U, because in the eyes of this guy, who spends most of his gaming time on a PC, it has already won the console war. I don't need every single cross-platform game, because the games it has and/or will have are the ones I want to play on a console. I will buy, play, and love Nintendo Land, Wii Party, Monster Hunter, Smash Bros, Mario Kart, Bayonetta, Wonderful 101, X (seriously, X) every single 3D Mario adventure, and every goddamn Zelda. And those are just the Wii U exclusives, and just the ones coming in the next 16 months. Those alone make the price tag reasonable. Hell, me and my friends have probably put enough hours into Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate and Nintendoland to justify the console already.

I seriously didn't even know the Wii U was out. Did it sell horribly or am I just alone living under a rock here?

[QUOTE=Mitsudigi;41370658]I seriously didn't even know the Wii U was out. Did it sell horribly or am I just alone living under a rock here?[/QUOTE] A little bit of both I'd imagine.

A shitty game fails horribly HOW WEIRD

[QUOTE=Mitsudigi;41370658]I seriously didn't even know the Wii U was out. Did it sell horribly or am I just alone living under a rock here?[/QUOTE] You're right on both counts, but for the wrong reasons. The system has been experiencing poor sales, but said sales have been the focus of so much media attention that I'm surprised you hadn't heard about them. [editline]8th July 2013[/editline] Oh, and Nintendo's marketing for the thing is some of the worst I've ever seen. That could be a part of it as well.

I ended up getting the ZombiiU console because it was actually cheaper than just the black one alone but also came with the pro controller and ZombiiU. I suspected ZombiiU would be average, like most launch titles. Was very surprised to find out ZombiiU did some neat things with the gamepad but otherwise felt clunky, unrealistic, and bad. Combat was not only unfun but the game punished you for participating in it, even though it sometimes gave you no choice. It's no surprise to me now that ZombiiU is not doing well.

[QUOTE=WitheredGryphon;41368529]You know it's not a good sign when one of the most popular games for the WiiU wasn't even profitable.[/QUOTE] Not profitable =/= didn't sell well I mean, you could make a product that everyone in America buys for $1, netting you approximately $310m dollars. Selling 310 million units of nearly any "single purchase need" item is an astounding milestone. But if you spent $6 billion developing that product then of course it's not profitable. As is mentioned earlier in the thread, they changed platforms and ZombiU is third iteration of the game. So if you think about it, they kind of made 4 different games, which is not cheap.

[QUOTE=Benstokes;41370460]It sucks that things aren't going so well for the Wii U, because in the eyes of this guy, who spends most of his gaming time on a PC, it has already won the console war. I don't need every single cross-platform game, because the games it has and/or will have are the ones I want to play on a console. I will buy, play, and love Nintendo Land, Wii Party, Monster Hunter, Smash Bros, Mario Kart, Bayonetta, Wonderful 101, X (seriously, X) every single 3D Mario adventure, and every goddamn Zelda. And those are just the Wii U exclusives, and just the ones coming in the next 16 months. Those alone make the price tag reasonable. Hell, me and my friends have probably put enough hours into Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate and Nintendoland to justify the console already.[/QUOTE] No, the Wii U hasn't "already won the console war", not even close. If you go by general sales the Wii U is one of the worst selling consoles ever made, this is partially due to the fact that [b]even 9 months after its release most people don't know its not a Wii add-on[/b], and the people who have even heard of the fucking thing and think its an add-on aren't buying it because they stopped playing with their Wii once they played all the Wii Sports minigames. Right now the only people playing on a Wii U are Nintendo fanboys and people who got hyped for ZombiU. There aren't any other games worth buying, Mario Kart, Smash Bros, Bayonetta 2, X, and Zelda, none of those are out yet and only a couple are even close. These are games the WiiU shold have released with, they [i]should not[/i] be 9 months into a console's life and have supporters saying "and just the ones coming in the next 16 months". 16 months?! In that time the XBone and PS4 will be a year old, we'll have moved on. All of those games should be out right now or released by the end of the year, not trapped in the ephemera of 'we managed to get 8 major games released in the first 2 years'. Nintendo fucked up hard with the Wii U and they can only blame themselves. I just hope the handful of quality games that are released for the Wii U are as good as they should be, give the people who bought one a reason to keep it hooked up.