Ubisoft Reluctant to Push Out Titles for Wii U Until Sales of Console Rise

Yves Guilemot, CEO of Ubisoft, told Polygon after their press conference at E3 that they “…have a game that has been done for six months. It’s on the shelf, waiting for more families to have the console.”

That console, of course, is Nintendo’s Wii U. Sales of the console have been, to say the least, shaky over its time on the market, and many consumers question if it’s worth being discussed on the same level of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. 

The company claims that while the product is finished, they are not nearly as confident as they’d like to be in the amount of Wii U owners that would be available to purchase it. 

Guilemot went on to say,

“We don’t have a number… We need the sales to increase so it becomes more and more mass market then we will have the volume that will justify massive marketing and TV marketing.”

While that quote isn’t forsaking the future of the console completely, it doesn’t exactly seem full of confidence, either. Instead of saying that the console was close or on the way, the response seemed rather distant and conservative, possibly indicating that Guilemot and Ubisoft don’t see the Wii U making a rise in the console wars. 

Ubisoft has indicated that the Wii U version of Watch Dogs will ship out in November, and ZombiU will continue to have support. He claimed that Just Dance was tailor-made for the console, and due to the lackluster sales, certainly feels discouraged about wasting resources on a game specifically made for it.

The end of the segment did suggest he has some hope for the future, though, indicating that Nintendo has a strong fan base, and the release of the next Super Smash Bros. game will create a huge boost for the console–and in turn Ubisoft’s confidence to produce games for it.