Two Assassin's Creed games: Unity and Rogue, are being released this year but neither one is headed for Nintendo's Wii U. Speaking to GameInformer at gamescom last week, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot explained why saying "Nintendo customers don’t buy Assassin’s Creed".
Describing the decision as "very simple", Guillemot stated that "last year we sold in very small numbers [on Wii U]". In all, the console accounted for just three per cent of Ubisoft's sales for 2013.
As such, Watch Dogs will be the last mature game Ubisoft releases on the platform but that doesn't mean Ubisoft is giving up on it entirely.
Guillemot says Ubisoft is now looking to bring the types of games Nintendo owners are interested in to the platform:
“What we see is that they are very interested in Just Dance, very interested by other kinds of games. So what we are trying to do is to focus more on the types of games they are interested in.”
In the same interview, he also expressed surprise at the speed with which gamers have adapted to the new console cycle and revealed that as a result of this, Ubisoft now plans to drop support for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 next year.
“What we see is that this year is still fine for the PS3 and 360, but next year because they are selling very quickly, we’ll move to the new hardware. After 2015, it will be hard for us to create games for those systems.”
Ubisoft is unlikely to sign a Rise of the Tomb Raider-like exclusivity deal with a platform holder but Guillemot said they're keen to explore new business models and are keeping an eye on the performance of EA Access.
At the moment there's still no word on when exactly Watch Dogs, which launched on PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One in May, will land on Wii U but it's expected sometime in autumn.
