ZombiU wasn't profitable, no sequel plans
Ubisoft and EA express growing disinterest in Wii U
ZombiU was nowhere near profitable and Ubisoft has no plans for a sequel, according to a GamesIndustry International article on Wii U's third-party prospects. Ubisoft chairman and CEO Yves Guillemot said the original zombie survival game didn't move nearly enough numbers to consider further development.
Evidently the prototype which was in the works earlier this year could not overcome its predecessor's shadow.
Guillemot said ZombiU's poor performance on Wii U convinced Ubisoft to develop former console exclusive Rayman Legends for PS3 and Xbox 360. The multinational publisher was one of Wii U's strongest supporters, with a half-dozen titles available in its launch window.
"We must find a way to ensure the creativity of those games could have a big enough audience," Guillemot said. "We hope it will take off. At the moment, we've said 'let's do through Christmas and see where we are from there.'"
Electronic Arts COO Peter Moore said his company has no games in development for Wii U at the moment. The console's focus just doesn't seem to match with EA's.
"The lack of online engagement that we see on Wii U [is troubling]," Moore said. "It's so integral to what we do. They're so small it's hardly worth running the servers. It seems like a box that's out of sync with the future of EA--which is one that gives a real social feel to our games. The Wii U feels like an offline experience right now."
Sign up to the 12DOVE Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.
This new indie D&D campaign setting brings Studio Ghibli and Zelda: Breath of the Wild aesthetics and worldbuilding to the tabletop RPG, and I'm already scheming hard as a DM
I've seen enough: Assassin's Creed Shadows will beat Black Flag as my favorite AC game as Ubisoft says it lets you "Naruto run" as the "fastest Assassin" it's ever made