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Ubisoft expects Wii U sales to “take off” this Christmas, and has pledged to continue supporting the console until at least 2014.
“We like the machine itself, with its possibility to have different types of gameplay on the TV screen and on the tablet,” CEO Yves Guillemot told GamesIndustry.biz. “It’s something that’s really new for the industry, and we’ll continue to see more of that on the PS4 and Xbox One.”
Guillemot says the publisher “will continue to support the Wii U this Christmas, and we’re expecting it to take off in terms of sales. And we’ll review what happened again at the beginning of next year.”
Wii U has struggled to gain momentum following its launch last year, with sales coming in lower than PS Vita earlier in the year.
However, major Wii U titles Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, Donkey Kong Country: Trouble Freeze and Super Mario 3D World are all due to launch this Christmas, with Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart 8 to follow in 2014.
Ubisoft is one of the few major third-party publishers left to pledge significant support for Wii U. EA does not currently have any Wii U games in development, while Activision has yet to confirm a Wii U version of Call of Duty: Ghosts, despite launching Black Ops 2 on the platform last year.
Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata took responsibility for Wii U’s failure last week, explaining that Nintendo “relaxed [its marketing] efforts, so the consumers today still cannot understand what’s so good and unique about the Wii U”.
“I do not think we should become too pessimistic about the current situation with the Wii U,” he added. “I think we should pour that time and energy into our [development] efforts, so eventually we can encourage third-party [publishers] to want to support Nintendo.”
Source: gamesindustry.biz
