'The Wii U will find its audience'

Some publishers are scaling back support for Nintendo’s Wii U due to its anemic sales. But for Ubisoft, a strong early supporter of Nintendo’s platforms, continuing to do business on the console just makes sense. “We did not take a big risk with all those launch titles on Wii U,” Tony Key, senior VP of sales and marketing at Ubisoft, told us this week. His company has released Wii U games such as Just Dance 4, ZombiU and Rabbids Land. “[Wii U game] development isn’t expensive -- some Wii U games are versions of games for other platforms, like Assassin’s Creed. And we continue to invest in that system. “We have just as many titles coming on Wii U this year as we did after launch, because the system isn’t as resource-intensive to make games for it. We continue to believe that the Wii U will find its audience. We saw some good games [during Nintendo Direct this week]. We’re confident that the Wii U is a good place for us to do business, and we can make money there.” Ubisoft has major games in the pipeline slated for Wii U, including Watch Dogs, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Rayman Legends, and Splinter Cell: Blacklist. Nintendo's putting its first-party weight behind the machine as well, in an effort to turn around flagging Wii U sales, with upcoming games such as Super Mario 3D World, Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros. and Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze. We’ll have more from Key in the near future.