Many gamers have been waiting with high anticipation for the release of Ubisoft’s upcoming title Watch_Dogs, which was originally planned for release in the third week of November… so, very soon! However, some people began to question whether this would actually happen when it wasn’t a playable demo at the Eurogamer Expo.
Now the development team has told us why:
“Our ambition from the start with Watch_Dogs has been to deliver something that embodies what we wanted to see in the next-generation of gaming. It is with this in mind that we’ve made the tough decision to delay the release until Spring 2014.
We know a lot of you are probably wondering ‘why now?’ We struggled with whether we would delay the game. But from the beginning, we have adopted the attitude that we will not compromise on quality. 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.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you. We thoroughly enjoy and appreciate the way you respond on the web, at events, press conferences and during other opportunities we have to interact. Your passion is what drives us.
We can’t wait to see you in Chicago next Spring. We are confident you’ll love this game as much as we love working on it.”
So, it’s an issue of quality and getting the game clean and polished before releasing it to the world. The game would have also been released against a number of other highly anticipated, big-budget titles for holiday sales, so it’s possible that a later release will mean it won’t get lost in the shuffle.
That said, Ubisoft seemed to have done an extensive amount of marketing for this title, so not only does that mean disappointed fans, but a potential loss of the momentum gained from the marketing campaign.
Ubisoft has also gone ahead and adjusted its budget and financial targets to reflect this loss of revenue for 2013, but that doesn’t seem to be the only reason. Despite the optimistic language coming from Ubisoft, it appears that both Splinter Cell Blacklist and Rayman Legends had “lower sales” than the company had anticipated.
If you recall (and who could forget?), Rayman Legends lost its Wii U exclusivity and ended up being delayed to a release time that was full of other releases, undoubtedly getting it lost in the shuffle—instead of taking advantage of the Wii U release window where it would have been a shining star amidst few other options.
The good news, that Nintendo fans can feel a little smug about, is that the Wii U version sold better than all the other console versions of the game. Maybe there is justice in the world, after all?
That said, Splinter Cell Blacklist sold only 10,000 Wii U copies, and only 300,000 units in total.
So, the future of both these franchises may be in jeopardy, especially when Ubisoft has other franchises—like Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry—that appear to be sure bets to bring in piles of cash with every release.
It will be interesting to see what happens with Ubisoft next, and how the delayed Watch_Dogs release further affects the company and its existing IPs.
