Ubisoft wants a Wii U price cut

My irony alarm went off when I saw this. Now, while hardware adoption is slow, that's down to a lack of software moreso than a high price--several million people have bought the Wii U globally at a high price, and more would have done so if there were more games to buy. A shocking thought, but with a few more games becoming available on a consistent basis, more systems would be sold, and more software would be sold. Nintendo have priced the hardware a little too high, and they were stupid to allow 27 titles to appear on day one without much of a solid line up coming after that (think about it: a couple of dozen titles available at the same time splits the sales potential of each title, making the software market appear very weak, whereas spreading those titles 5 or 6 per week would have resulted in healthier returns for some and avoided the software void that plagues Wii U). However, for Ubisoft to again state that the price should be lower to drive sales of their games on the system, shortly after delaying their highest profile game for the Wii U, should set irony alarms ringing. I don't think it's a call likely to find many receptive ears within Nintendo itself--their priority should be getting their marquee first party titles out soon and on a consistent basis, even though publishers will then naturally complain they can't compete with said first party titles.

Alain Corre, Ubisoft, here is your lesson: when no new games are available, far fewer games are bought.

* fewer

Chicken or the Egg? Do they expect the Wii U to pull those magical Wii numbers again on their own? From all the research I've been doing on the Wii U, I've learned that even though it's not doing as well as the Wii out of the gate, it's still doing somewhat decent, but for most outside consumers to purchase it, they seek more support from third party companies, like Ubisoft, to justify the pricetag, which I don't think is expensive at all compared to the past gen. After all, people did buy ZombiU, but I think if Nintendo can show to the masses why getting a Wii U is a better option and experience than what we have now, and the PS4 and NextBox, they can recover. Games and Ads which will come in due time. (Being optimistic.)

"If you build it, nerds will come."

@Calvin, people bought Zombi U ( I did get the pack Zombi U ), but it sold around 300k copies worldwide.

Knowing Ubisoft deluded suits managing it, it's probably far from what they wanted, they were probably aiming for 1M copies or something.
Issue is, it seems on internet, that many people got the Wii U for Rayman or were planning to get it for Rayman. UIbisoft will have the same amount of sale for this Rayman than the previous one and will blame Nintendo for the price..although I wonder what excuse will come up with for not being able to compete against GTA V.

Some people say it's not the same public who buy GTA and Rayman, I disagree, I got Zombi U, Batman and I was going to get Rayman, but now Ubisoft can go to hell with their Rayman.

The new mario, mario kart, or yoshi will be out probably in the last quarter of this year and my money will go to those titles...and I bet most of the people who got the Wii U will do the same, if you add a new Xeno game, and the other RPG I can't recall the name of, + the titles they haven't announced yet but metionned existed, then Rayman is already definitely a failure.

I agree with you about the sales, etc...people say it's a failure, considering the price, economic climate, it's actually regular sales and nothing alarming. It's not the Vita :-)

Why would Nintendo change the price tag any way after only 3 months. It's not a software. Software tends to have their price dropping really quickly ( Batman Arkham city armored edition is already at £18 on amazon on Wii U... ), but Console don't, you gotta wait at least 1 year for that. They're really deluded at Ubisoft.

They're the perfect example of a company driven by money and suits.

I wouldn't say that Corre so much made a demand as an observation. Of course he'd want the Wii U price to be lower, same with the Xbox 360 and PS3. The lower the price, the more systems are sold and the more potential customers to buy their products.

Ideally, Ubisoft's price for each system would be $0.00 plus tax. They still sell $60 games regardless.

@Christoper: That nearly made me keel over laughing in a Starbucks. Bravooooo!

@Stephan--Rayman Legends was far from a system selling game but it would have helped during this dry period of Wii U releases.

As for a price drop, not going to happen until AFTER they release a Zelda, Metroid, another Mario and some other first party game. Nintendo isn't dumb. They know for a fact that the reason theres not much interest in their system right now is because the first party games haven't been rolling out as quickly as everyone would like. Sure a price drop would help but then people would still want games to play for the system. So once those big first party Nintendo games start to roll out Nintendo will look at the sales figures for those months and a few months afterwards. If sales are still down across the board after a new Zelda/Mario release then they will have no choice but to drop the price.

I don't think they are that concerned about the other systems launching later this year either. Atleast not unless they get outsold thru out the entire holiday. Then they will start to care.

@Greg, Clad I could help :D

"We always want the hardware to be at a low price because we want as many fans as possible to afford to buy our games, so that’s for sure,"

hold it right there! that doesn't exactly sound right ! :)
if they want as many fans as possible to afford to buy their games, then i would think it is ubisoft who should be selling at a lower price point! :)

I think nintendo should update their system with a new firmware, one that would allow indies to develop and test directly on the commercial console. That would solve a lot of problems and nintendo wouldn't have to take such cr...p from 3rd parties anymore!

Edited 2 times. Last edit by Yiannis Koumoutzelis on 8th March 2013 2:49pm

Ideally, Ubisoft's price for each system would be $0.00 plus tax. They still sell $60 games regardless.

Somebody give this man a cigar.

I think you're slightly mistaken, the wii u is the fastest selling console of all time, it sold millions of pre orders and sold out in gamestop and many other retailers before it was even out.

It's far more successful than the wii's launch, although whether it will be consistant in good sales is another matter.

@christophe I think that's a terrible idea in the sense that I cannot understand why anyone would have such opinions without much thought.

Firstly it's too early and such a move would cause an outcry for the consumers.

People seem to be so blindfolded when it comes to companies and price drops, Wii U acheives both 1080p graphics and a £90 controller, the combination of the two are extremely expensive.

Therefore it's blatantly obvious that none of ubisoft's opinion makes any buisiness sense let alone commen sense.

Nintendo struggle to make as much profit as they desire on the wii u's current price, so it's narrow minded for people to expect a price cut so extremely early.

It's like running before you can walk except you're got no limbs to walk on.