Ubisoft plays the politician
Thursday, May 31st, 2007 at 11:38am by Jack
Ubisoft is in a great position now. They were quick to recognize the potential in the Wii and got a gob of games out for it in time for launch. A bit too quick, however, as many of the games lacked the polish and finish of some of the more robust Wii titles to date. Seriously, I think Far Cry didn’t even have an intro screen. It just started you off in level 2.
Regardless, they made bank off the Wii even if their effort was sub-par at best.
Even if their low quality fare dampened the system’s overall potential, Ubisoft is sitting pretty and can fire off statements like this one at Next Generation without worry of any real reprisal:
Speaking to German magazine Spiegel, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot and the company’s European head, Alain Corre admitted, “We made mistakes,” having been over-eager to capitalize on the promise of the Wii. They stated that future titles would be of a higher quality.
The pair also reaffirmed their belief that Nintendo’s rivals Sony and Microsoft should drop the price of the PS3 and Xbox 360 respectively in a bid to boost sales. “Sony should set a new price point soon if it still wants to sell a satisfactory amount of units this year. Microsoft, too, by the way.”
Ubisoft is a quality software company. There’s plenty of IP out there to prove that point ten times over. They knew exactly what they were doing when they released schlock for the Wii. Personally, I think it was lazy and they should pay for it in the long run. However, professionally I think it was a shrewd business move and showed they at least recognized the Wii had the chops to be a software seller even as the mainstream media and many gamers wrote the system off. They threw a buch of crap against the wall and some of it stuck.
All that said, I’m giving Ubisoft a second chance (I didn’t buy any of their games for the Wii). I hope their second crop is a bit more serious than the first. They made the money with round one, now they can make an effort in round two.
May 31st, 2007 at 12:22 pm
lol- ‘Seriously, I think Far Cry didn’t even have an intro screen. It just started you off in level 2.’
I think we’re maybe a tad too easy on Ubi here, mostly due to their history of developing and publishing quality titles. But the truth is that they saw the wii launch as a money grab and rushed their product out, ET-like in fact. It really remains a huge offense to gamers that is discounted only because there was NO strong competition for those games. It was like gamers were happy to take whatever they could get. Or gamers were happy to ignore ubi and play wii sports. It would have been very different had a competing AAA fps like MP3 been around at launch.
like you say, they didnt just stumble into these mistakes either. they MUST have known FC was a mistake well before it went gold. they went to market with it anyways. that’s arrogance.
dont let them off the hook. and dont praise them for shrewd moves that screw the gamers. ubi needs to earn back its respect; second chances shouldnt be automatic for screwing gamers with their greed.
oh, and where’s the worry that, with all the new audience being brought to the wii, ubi will weaken the wii’s position with such crap-titles? why was no one worried that they were giving new gamers a bad taste of gaming?
May 31st, 2007 at 1:00 pm
OK, Ubi put out a lot of bad, unfinished Wii software, but Rayman Raving Rabbids was a fine launch game. It wasn’t deep, but it beat the crap out of any of the third-party DS launch titles, as well as most of the first party stuff. And it kept us busy till Elebits came out less than a month later. The Wii’s launch was better in every regard.
Even Red Steel was a stalking horse, as lousy as it was, demonstrating to less hardcore gamers that not all Wii games were “kiddie”…. not that anyone but hardcore gamers cares about that anyway.
May 31st, 2007 at 2:50 pm
I got Rayman Raving Rabbids on launch day with my Wii…
I took it back to the store two days later and traded it for Monkey Ball!
Yep, it was that bad. I believe RRR owed its success to the novelty of being the only game on launch, other than Wii Sports, that used the remote in many different ways. But the graphics were barely N64-quality, and there was no rhyme or reason to connect the mini games. It felt more like a series of animated jokes (and the jokes indeed were FUNNY, which was probably another reason for its success, but I can hardly call their collective a game!).
May 31st, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Red Steel was SO not ready to be released at launch.
The graphics needed polish, the controls were not tight enough.
With another 4-5 months development the average game Red Steel could have been so much better.
Rayman was the only good game, and it was not great, it just did not have the lack of polish the other titles had.
I now will be VERY careful in buying BOOBIE soft games from now on.
Stupid greedy bastards…
May 31st, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Red Steel may not be perfect, but the multiplayer is awesome. Limited, but awesome. Much easier to play with friends who never played the game before. If I play Perfect Dark with any of them, I own them hard because I know all the tricks and whatno, and the controls are more complicated. Red Steel is easier to play and evens the odds. Less owning, more fun. Your friends will only like it ‘this much’ if you keep killing them over and over, because they can’t play well.
May 31st, 2007 at 5:31 pm
I can’t really say about most of the other Ubisoft-titles,
but I see Rayman Raving Rabbits as a perfect party game to play with a whole family or a group of friends, even if they have no console experience. A lot of fun games, suits different player tastes & styles and just doesn’t take itself serious.
But the best fun is record-hunting with an experienced player until our arms and shoulders hurt…
It’s not so much a solo game for me, since the game just needs a bit of 2-player competitiveness (is that a word?), even though I really have to get all the advanced modes (1 Heart Only, Competitions) done, quite a challenge at times.
Seriously I couldn’t think of much Ubisoft could have done better with this game, especially while keeping such a broad target audience.
For me the best Party Game Title so far.
May 31st, 2007 at 7:11 pm
I think Far Cry didn’t even have an intro screen. It just started you off in level 2……….lmao I had to bring this up never thought of anybody saying that…..lol
At first I was kinda excited then after I read the reviews I said no way . Good thing I didnt even bother picking this one up .
Another title I ignored was Splinter Cell and Red Steel..
I am a Splinter Cell fan I played all of them in my ps2 but when I read the reviews for the Wii I passed so I did with Red Steel.
But still Im looking forward for Red Steel 2 knowing that the director for Red Steel 1 got fired..