E3 2014: Ubisoft sitting on completed Wii U game until console sales pick up

Ubisoft had one new Wii U title to announce today at its E3 press conference, Just Dance 2015. In fact aside from Watch Dogs its the only game they have coming to any current Nintendo platform.

It gets worse though, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has confirmed in a post-conference roundtable that the company even has games for the Wii U completed, on hold, waiting for the right time to release reports MCV.

What is the right time? According to Guillemot that’s “until the Wii U has a certain market size before we launch”.  The game has even been completed for six months, it’s sitting there in Ubisoft HQ collecting dust.

Here’s the full quote from Guillemot;

[quote]We did adapt the number of products and the level of quantity that we did on the machine, We will have Just Dance 2015 on Wii U, which is suited to the machine, we will have Watch Dogs. We have another couple of products that we are waiting for launch. Specifically, we have one game that we are waiting until the Wii U has a certain market size before we launch.

“We have a game that has been done for six months; it is on our shelf waiting until more families to have the machine. Nintendo is really coming with fantastic games, so they could – with the right price and very good games – get the machine to start.

If Wii U’s sales continue to multiply, it will quickly come to a mass market. We need the sales to increase so it becomes more mass market, and then we will have the volume we need to justify big marketing campaigns and TV marketing. This game could never come out and could instead come out on another format that offers the same sort of experience. We will know this year how the machine goes.

We have to wait for Smash Bros to come. Smash Bros has always been a big, big property for Nintendo and for gamers. We all know that there are lots of Nintendo fans that are waiting for big games to come. We know they are coming. When I speak to the fans that come to E3, 90 per cent of them are crazy Nintendo fans. They really love Nintendo and the games they do. If they can quickly come and buy a Wii U, it would be good.[/quote]

If this all sounds familiar its because they’ve already done this before with Rayman Legends. That game was famously delayed only to be released later on all platforms, not just the Wii U. The game then sold best on the Wii U anyhow.

What do you think about this bizarre move, should they just release the game?