Ubisoft Foresees A Rise In Wii U Sales
Xavier Poix, the managing director of Ubisoft France's studios, stated that he isn't disappointed in the Wii U's current struggling sales. He believes that Nintendo's Wii U just needs more time to appeal to consumers. With the addition of new, more popular titles, and with more consumers warming up to the idea of the Wii U's gamepad, Poix believes that Wii U sales will become more successful.
Poix currently manages 3 Ubisoft studios and a variety of popular gaming franchises, including Just Dance, Ghost Recon, and the much delayed Rayman. He stated that Ubisoft likes to start development on newly launched gaming platforms, like the Wii U, because doing so will help it grab much more sales in the long run. Also, with new gaming platforms, Ubisoft is free to experiment with new games, like ZombiU, that has no ties with its currently popular game franchises.
Poix believes that the main setback for Wii U sales is the gamepad. He says that the "new controller would be something harder to convey than the Wii," but that people just need to adapt to the idea of the gamepad and the innovation it can bring to console gaming. He says,
"For our games we really wanted to show the innovation. In ZombiU for instance, the players are really fond of the multiplayer mode because it's totally new; it's like one FPS player against an RTS player. We pushed the limits of that so it can be a real gameplay challenge to look at two screens."
Poix also believes that the Wii U just needs more "system-selling" games. The Wii U is still fresh, so he believes that once more developers push out games from their popular franchises, the Wii U's sales will rise rapidly. Poix says that Ubisoft is expecting its upcoming Rayman Legends game to be one of those system-sellers. He says,
"We know from the fans that the majority of what will be the system sellers are not yet available. And on our side, Rayman will be one of them for sure. We really expect Rayman to be a huge system seller on the console."
[via Games Industry]