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The decision to delay Watch Dogs may have an impact on initial next-gen hardware sales, an analyst has claimed, as consumers reconsider whether to purchase an Xbox One or PlayStation 4 next month.
“I think [Watch Dogs] was going to be one of the drivers for initial games-console bundle sales and will probably push back some of the hardware sales that would have happened right out of the gate for Sony and Microsoft,” said Lewis Ward, video games research manager at research firm IDC speaking to the BBC.
“But absolutely it’s the right decision if there’s something glitchy or there’s some game-balance factor that is off.
“There’s a lot of interconnections between the things you can control in the game and how the story then unfolds, so I can only assume there’s some factor with the incredibly complex open-world gameplay that’s off.
“But there’s no reason Ubisoft can’t still deliver what they hoped to do with this game.”
Ubisoft confirmed that Watch Dogs had been delayed until spring 2014 on Tuesday, citing quality reasons as the grounds for its delay.
“As we got closer to release, as all the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place in our last push before completion, it became clear to us that we needed to take the extra time to polish and fine tune every detail so we can deliver a truly memorable and exceptional experience,” Ubisoft explained.
The delay also caused Ubisoft’s share price to slump 26 per cent.
Watch Dogs is now expected to launch between April and June of next year.
Source: bbc.co.uk
