His sources don't seem solid enough to accuse Ubisoft of not turning a profit.

Basically he says that the game sold about 500k
It costs about 1.2 million to port games and that ZombieU was a "port" of a scrapped ge in development for the PS3/360, meaning that the game did in fact get close to breaking even

I for one don't think that the unfinished game cost only 1.2 million to create for the WiiU and even if it were near that, the fact remains that the author only took offense to Unisoft saying it "wasn't close" to breaking even. Even if everything the author said was true, the game STILL wouldn't have made an sort of profit so any sequel would be scrapped regardless.

But realistically, what reason would they have to lie about it?

It doesn't benefit them to lie. They were one of the few third party companies that tried to put a decent footing on the Wii U.

Come with solid, credible sources before you say that Ubisoft are putting up lies.

This is a very poorly written article. He cites an unreliable source as 'proof,' makes a bunch of unwarranted speculations, and then throws it all together in a poorly formed accusation.

You can always tell when a piece is written by someone who has no business be a "journalist."

Before you go and call a company out, you should probably oh, I don't know, ask them about the situation first.

email them, I know for a fact Ubisoft will get back to you. I've worked with them many times, and then if they say they refuse to comment on the matter, you can try to state your case.

Even if the author would of tired to reach out to ubi, there is next to zero evidence of their claims.

I think the cost of what was originally put into Killer Freaks from Outer Space plus the cost of remaking that game into ZombiU could explain Ubi not making a profit off the game. The sales were decent for console release game, it sounds to me like Ubi just went too far over on their budget retooling the game and couldn't make all that money back. So in closing, they mismanaged their money and now putting the blame on something else like other AAA studios do when their projects fail to make profit.

I wonder how much changed from Killer Freaks from Outer Space to ZombiU. For some reason Killer Freaks from Outer Space sounds like a rail-shooter to me.

ZombieU looks like a Xbox 360/ PS3 game. It also looks like a low budget game for those consoles, and is more like a insult to the Wii U. To be honest, every game Ubisoft has doesn't take advantage of the Wii U hardware. Rayman Legends and Splinter Cell are current generation quality. The Wii U is a much more powerful console. Watch Dogs for the PS4 Jimmy Fallon playthrough didn't look next gen either, so you know the Wii U version won't be. Not that every game has to be next generation, but I'm starting to see what Ubisoft is doing. They are smart in the sense of being a business, but their games will never reach mass market success. A game will have to be nothing short of amazing to gamers for that level of success, meaning taking full advantage of next gen hardware.

To generate more profit, Ubisoft should port this IP to PS4 or Xbone or PS3 and 360.. To avoid marketing Wii U, they should rename the franchise to DEAD ____ lol.

First selling less than 500,000 when the game was also sold in bundles is not a lot.
Second developing a new ip on new hardware there where bound to be unexpected expenses.
Third the game devs do not get 100% of the game sales no company selling anything makes100% profit you ever hear of overhead.
Finally I think ubisoft knows whether or not they made any money on the game. And breaking even isn't good enough.
If it sold 470k at 60$ a pop, but remember so.e of those sales where bundled with wiiu at 400$ so 50$ for the games that sold in those bundles. That's at most 28 million before tax, overhead shipping, etc. So ubisoft at most got around 12 million of that anybody think it coast them less than that to make zombie u

To be fair whilst the article is clearly wrong I dont really understand Ubisofts stance. They have said it was a failure and yet has a 1:6 attach rate. Thats the equivelant of a ps3 game selling over 10 million copies which would be deemed a massive success.

The reason, therefore, that the game wasnt profitable, isnt that Nintendo fans dont buy 3rd party, its that Nintendo missed their predicted sales.

Now, there are loads of potential system sellers before the end of this financial year. Lets say Nintendo were to get their install base above 10 million. If Zombi2u were to have the same attach rate it would sell close to 2 million copies. If they needed more sales than that to turn a profit they really should be going multi plat.

Good game but it could've been a great game. It reminded me of Demons Souls a lot. It just didnt have as great of gameplay and as stupid as it sounds, the name was a turn off. Needed an extra 9 months of polish, coop where you randomly run into up to four people, and some more polish. It's a great foundation for a series that can focus on a new city each game. I'd love to experience a Zombie U in New Orleans, Seattle, Paris, Moscow, Tokyo exc.

Except Chris Morris Never spoke to Ubisoft before writing his article.

Chris Morris made it up, and used a rearranged completely unrelated quote from an interview in june Read the actual source article.

Its made up bs. Chris Morris IMPLIES he had an interview, actually talked to these people.

He didn't, all of his quotes, are clipped directly from other interviews, from other news sites, WITHOUT being sourced or credited, (thats plagiarism kids) Preceded by a loaded fallacious often fictional paraphrasing of said quote.

The quote he used for Ubisoft, was from an interview that had absolutely nothing to do with Zombi U.

Its fake. He's the one saying it, not Yves.

Credit to 3Dude for research:
http://thewiiu.com/topic/13...

I don't really care how profitable it was. What doesn't make sense to me is why they expected more money on a system only FOUR MILLION PEOPLE OWN IF THAT.

So what happens when 1st party games are released? Games with the same developer and publisher?

Who cares its for the wii like real gamers care lmao

of coarse! some one at sony or microsoft who has paid off some ubisoft people, (HEY IT HAPPENS!) THE NUMBERS DO NOT LIE!!! this game was NOT A FAILURE! no it was no zelda, but the game did sell well enough to be a modest hit. Just like EA said, oh we won't make games for wii u, uhh yeah.. look at the people at ubisoft who made ray man, They don't hate nintendo, so it's just one or two bought off employee's there, who don't like nintendo. just putting out false Information!! thanks to the person for telling the truth on this one!

If they are lying, then my question immediately is, 'Why would they lie?'.

The only answer I think, if this is all true, is that they want to see what kind of outcry they may get for a sequel, along with the forced expectation that if there ever is a sequel, it would be multiplat rather than Wii U exclusive.

I know that the common idea amongst people of decent intelligence these days is that the vast majority of people are stupid. But it's exceedingly stupid to overestimate yourself, and underestimate the intelligence of the crowd you see yourself as smarter than, and would manipulate.

Why would they have a reason to lie? They are one of Nintendo's biggest supporters.

It's a pretty incendiary accusation to say Ubisoft is lying without any facts or sources to support the claim. To say 500,000 X 60 = 28 millions so their lying is completely distorting the numbers. The publisher only gets around half. Plus, we have to take into account how long it was in development for, cost of things like dev kits (probably overall pretty low) and marketing, among other things.

Don't get me wrong, I find it odd that a game without a triple A budget isn't even close to profitable with 500,000 units sold, but then I'm not going to automatically assume Ubisoft is lying.

http://kotaku.com/this-is-p...

The proof is in the sales and now you have them for your eyes to see. Instead of a your ridiculous speculations without any validity. Funny when you claim you don't side with Nintendo but then you make claims such as this not as if your youtube videos don't speak enough for themselves.

Oh well we can't all be right every time now can we?