Nintendo Switch Will "Expand The Possibilities Of Fun" Says Ubisoft's Alain Corre

Sounds like a dirty chat-up line.

"Just Dance..... (laughs)..... Sorry (laughs)."

They said the same thing about Wii U, and look what happened with Rayman Legends.

Can't wait for just dance........ cough

'few major third party publishers to stick by the console'

Seriously, by going multi platform and releasing just dance!

"We have big expectations for the innovative Nintendo Switch"

Me too. Just with other games than just dance lol.

I don't understand the hate for ubisoft from nintendo fans. They gave it the best they could do from a sensible business perspective on wii u. I'm always keen to see what they're working on. Beyond the silly just dance games, of course.

@Damo Exactly. Some people seem to have some trouble remembering actual facts...

Its all about games, not just hardware.

Please, make a new Rayman game! That´s the Ubisoft I know and love.

ZombiU Switch and Prince of Persia would be nice to accompany Beyond Good and Evil 2.

But we'll get Assassins Creed of Persia 6, Just Dance Switch it up and Mario & Luigi infected Rabbids: MyxomatosiSwitch Edition!

I never understood the scorn Ubi got from Nintendo fans, they stood by the Wii U long after almost everyone else bailed. You can't realistically hold dwindling support against them since Nintendo themselves have effectively stopped supporting their own console too.

Although the interest in Just Dance from this kind of audience is minimal they are naturally only going to use announced games as examples.

@ThanosReXXX @Damo While it's true that they supported Wii U and stayed around longer than most third parties did, what people are forgetting is that the Wii U ports asides from Rayman Legends were gimped in one way or another, e.g. no online, missing modes, no DLC, etc.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE And? Their main public is on other platforms, and developing to Wii U with parity would cost the most (much more optimization to the weaker console, for example) and profit the least.

They gain nothing by making people who can buy in other consoles buy it on Nintendo instead, so those version are only really targeting those who are Nintendo only. Do you really think there's enough of them to justify putting all the money required for parity, principally looking at Wii U numbers?

Seems Ubisoft will never be forgiven by the few for the Rayman delay.Zelda has been delayed for nearly 2 years so it could be ported to another platform but that's alright?

The word 'innovative' is banded about so much in the video game space that it's lost its true meaning and impact. Changing jump from button B to button A would be blumming 'innovative' these days.

Ubisoft supported Wii-U way past the point that it made good business sense, and they were the only major third party publisher to actually make a run at producing unique content rather than outdated ports (I'm looking at you EA and Mass Effect). So what if Rayman had launched on time and exclusively for Wii-U? Would that have floated the system? They did the best they could having jumped onto a sinking ship, and it was a lot more than other third parties. It's nice to hear that the Wii-U doesn't seem to have damaged that relationship.

Let's not blame Ubisoft for the Wii-U's failure, that blame lies squarely with Nintendo.

I think we should wait until the system is released then talk it up if its actually fun and/or innovative.

I'm wondering what the battery life is going to be like.

@Damo

And Watch Dogs too I suppose, however there have been a lot of lies and false promises from them too. This is where I get my dislike for the company and also their game catalogue really doesn't interest me.

I hope Ubi has a new Rayman in the works. A 3D platformer at that. I know Ubi got a lot of hate when Rayman Legends got delayed and moved to other consoles, but I didn't care about that at all.

Hm...I want to see if Ubisoft can localize some Japanese games into USA version, just like during NDS and Wii era. Otherwise, I don't care at all about Ubisoft.

All I got from that is that they really want us to buy Just Dance.

@OorWullie There was room for a Rayman game in the launch window. I wanted it, but I did not purchase it later on, because there were other games I wanted to play by then. They missed their chance.

And the real reason why people were mad, I believe, is that we knew Ubisoft had put a lot of pressure on the dev team to rush the game. It was finished and ready for launch, but they decided to not release it with no real reason.

Talking about Rayman, and since they are my avatar, the Runaway Guys have just started a Rayman LP, if anyone's interested...

If (and let's be honest probably only if) the real-life equivalent of the basketball dudes in the Switch video start buying, then it'll be smooth sailing and Ubisoft can Just Dance all they want.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE Like others have already said, that was a sound business decision on their part. We as gamers tend to look at it with (too much) emotion, but it isn't personal, like we might perceive it: it's just business, and catering to a platform that is the smallest in the market is a risk in the first place, so taking the extra time to optimize and fully structure things like online support and so on simply adds to that risk and the obvious costs involved, so in the end, it's still admirable that they brought all these titles to the Wii U.

@3MonthBeef Yeah, I know. Luckily, I can look at it from both sides and keep some objectivity about it. Maybe that's because I'm also a business man myself, and being a sales & marketing guy only makes me understand the mechanics involved even more, but to some extent I'd like to think that even without that, I would STILL be able to make the objective distinction.

People nowadays are WAY too butt-hurt by stuff that should not be taken personal at ALL. The internet has made the larger part of humanity both overly anti-social and over-sensitive...

@ThanosReXXX I understand and take your points but the developers can't blame us if the sales are poor. I own every game Ubisoft put on the platform bar Just Dance. If you own a PS4 and a Wii U, take Watch Dogs, I know it's the worst example but still. It arrives months after the other versions, is missing some of the DLC, is poorly optimised and doesn't use the advantages of the gamepad. Why would someone wait for that or why would someone buy that version? I own it but I'm a Wii U only owner.

To be quite honest, I think the rabbids need to be left in their warren. I've never encountered anyone young or old with true adoration for a rabbid.
UweBollSoft are at it again?!

@SLIGEACH_EIRE Well, that's a perfect example of the exact thing I'm talking about: they give Wii U owners the game bare bones, because the extra cost involved simply isn't worth the risk for them and they probably already lost money on bringing it to the Wii U in the first place.

The only other option would be for them to not bring it at all, so that is why it's still okay that they published it on Wii U regardless. Whatever else we may think of the company or their franchises, that truly does show that they are interested in keeping Nintendo as a partner, and it bodes well for the future.

Contrary to what some people seem to think, it is up to Nintendo to give developers the platform that they want and need, so that it will be profitable for them to release their IP's on and that in and of itself will make them put in more effort to optimize the games and flesh out the experience with (more) online features and the accompanying DLC.

@ThanosReXXX Again, I agree with some of your points made.

Ubisoft games are pure trash. I don't see how anyone can say they supported Nintendo considering all of the trashy games they released on the 3DS during it's launch period. When Nintendo were holding of the release of titles to give third parties breathing room for sales.

When I think of Ubisoft "support" I think of this: https://pietriots.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/3pwall1001_ubiwallofshame.jpg

and this

https://pietriots.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/ubiroster.jpg?w=600

@dew12333 @NoxAeturnus @ThanosReXXX @Damo

I wouldn't call the 6 month late release of a game that received very lukewarm reviews and deceptively advertised of supporting the "longest" out of the third party. Hell, Activtion put more effort into their Call of Duty ports in terms of supporting the Gamepad .

Considering, their statements of mature games don't sell on the Wii U, wasn't even true when holding on the portion that brought the game vs the size of the console base. Then issue okay, Ubisoft still had non-mature games that they could have had released games in genres that have historically performed great on Nintendo consoles like Tetris, Monopoly, Trail Fusions, The Crew, Uno, Hasbro Fun-Pack etc

An interesting take on AC: Black Flag from a someone that runs another Nintendo fan blog:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUdkqY5Lr7A

@SLIGEACH_EIRE But which parts don't you agree with then? If you understand why the developers are doing this/have done this, then there's nothing else left but your own choice of buying these games or not buying these games and to not blame the developers, because their choices were logical.

The whole thing about them being dissatisfied with sales and all that (something certainly not unique to Ubisoft alone) is just marketing blurb and a way for them to step out gracefully, as far as that label is/was applicable.

Regardless of what industry we're talking about, big companies will almost never tell you the real reason they are doing certain things. Whatever happens at <insert company> stays at <insert company>, unless the media somehow catch on.

The recent troubles in the automotive industry come to mind (the Volkswagen software scandal and such), which could always have remained hidden from the public, if it wasn't for some highly inquisitive minds...

@Malakai Activision released their port of COD Black Ops 2 right at the beginning of the Wii U's life cycle, and released the last COD game on Wii U one year later (COD: Ghosts) in 2013. After that, there was The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, also in 2013, and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in 2014. In between and after that, all we saw was Guitar Hero and Skylanders. Oh, and a Transformers game...

Ubisoft on the other hand, released two big titles in that same year (Splinter Cell Blacklist and Assassin's Creed Black Flag) and also Rayman Legends, Just Dance 2014, The Smurfs 2 and Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2013. Maybe some of those titles aren't to everyone's taste, but taking into account the VERY meager sales of both Assassin's Creed 3 and Zombi U in the year before that, their willingness to still release so many titles after that debacle truly does show that they are more committed to Nintendo than any other third party developer.

And they continued to display the same behavior in 2014, in which they released yet another four titles on Wii U. (Child of Light, Just Dance 2015 & 2016 and Watch_Dogs)

So, people really need to get off their high horse and take off those weird colored glasses and see the facts that are staring them in the face.

Being a Nintendo fan doesn't mean that you have to ignore numbers and facts...

@ThanosReXXX Zombi U, a game that was in "development hell" for years, also, it was stated by the CEO that Zombi U was a very minimum investment, as we can see by the documented glitches and poor production for a $60 game. Damn, right the sales should not have even hit the 700,000 units. But oh wait, when did 700,000 sales become "meger"? Furthermore, in the same article, the CEO said that a port of a Wii U game cost roughly 1 million Euros. I highly doubt they lost that much money when supporting the Wii U like the CEO was trying to imply.
Source here: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-07-23-ubisoft-says-wii-u-ports-costing-under-USD1-3-million

Splinter Cell Blacklist, a game that was missing local multiplayer on the Wii U version?

Black Flag, a game that Ubisoft, which as stated in link that post in post #37, sent out to die.

Also, I see you didn't even bother to mention the low quality efforts that they released on the 3DS. Complained about the sales and canceled the rest of the titles. Currently, the 3DS sits at 40 million units in the West. The issues that a Nintendo fan may have with Ubisoft isn't just with the Wii U support. It is with the 3DS as well. Considering, Ubisoft

Sure, they may have had released titles, but let us not pretend that Ubisoft put forth their best efforts.
Also, the thing is we didn't hear anything about Activsion say crap and spouting off lies about the Wii U customer base.

@ThanosReXXX It isn't about "cost" or "investment". It is about customer service. If you are going to treat a customer like trash. Expect trash sales. A developer/publisher that isn't willing to have the best possible parity why bother releasing the game.

Don't even get me started on how Ubisoft flooded the Wii and DS with shovelware and never put forth any of that money into solid Wii games. In fact, Ubisoft used the Wii/DS profits to actually invest in Xbox 360 and PS3 development.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-games-ubisoft-idUSL2287657620070822

Money Quote: "Guillemot said the company's casual games business was "extremely profitable" and helped to finance the initially costly development of games for next-generation consoles — Sony's PlayStation3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360."

I loved beyond good and evil. really excited by the idea of number 2 being on switch!

@Malakai Look, I'm not going to automatically assume that everybody is knowledgeable in the field of sales & marketing, but it is my area of expertise, and has been for over 25 years, so you'd need to be making some HIGHLY convincing statements to be able to make me believe that it's not about cost and investment: they're real considerations for any large company, so there's no putting them between quotation marks like some imaginative terms.

And those lower development costs were for Xbox 360/PS3 to Wii U ports, not for games originally developed for Wii U.

And once the Wii U started to fail, even spending around a million dollars (or more, for original titles, as stated in that article that you linked to) on porting and optimization was at best a risk and at its worst a waste of money, if you couldn't be sure if you were going to see that money back from subsequent sales.

And no matter which way you spin it, Ubisoft released more triple A titles on the Wii U and more titles overall compared to other publishers. I never said that they were putting in their best effort on these games.

And of course they didn't because best efforts cost time and money, and that is an investment that they, as a company looking for a profit margin, clearly weren't willing to make because the ROI would have been too small.

And the proof that Zombi U didn't make them enough money to either get in the clear or gain some measure of profit is evident in the fact that they decided to re-release it on other platforms to squeeze some more money out of it. If it would have been highly successful on Wii U, then it would have remained exclusive, and there were even initial plans for a sequel if that desired target would have been reached. And 700.000 sales isn't a good number at ALL. You'd need at least 1 to 1,5 million copies sold to get your ROI and make a decent profit.

Yes they made money on the casual games, but they also lost money on quite a few big titles. (although not just on Wii U, but on the Wii U it was even more evident due to the lower number of triple A titles compared to other platforms).

And I already explained why these titles were missing stuff, so no idea why the hell you brought that up. And that also wasn't the point. The most important part of my point was and is that they published the most titles and they supported the console for the longest period, and that's a fact.

And I "didn't bother" to mention the 3DS, because the discussion was about titles on the Wii U, which you could have guessed from the reply I gave to the person I responded to.

But to respond to that: yeah, I guess that was a very mixed bag. The only game I personally enjoyed, and which got decent review scores was Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars. So, you may have a point there...

@ThanosReXXX

Here is a simple case example for the case of ZombiU:

Looking at this link:
http://unrealitymag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/game-pie.jpg
another link on this topic:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/02/anatomy-of-a-60-dollar-video-game.html

For a $60 game Ubisoft gets $27 back. Assuming Ubisoft moved 150,000 out of 700,000 at full price we are looking at 4.05 million dollar alone, in terms of revenue, for that on Ubisoft's balance sheet. Let say for simplicity that the retail price dropped to $20 after the 150,00 units were moved. Now, still assuming the 45% retail margin as indicated in the above link, let's say Ubisoft moved 500,000 units @ $20. That is another 4.5 million dollars on Ubisoft's balance sheet. Let say the reaming 50,000 was on sell on the eshop for $10. Ubisoft would get roughly 70% margin from the sale price. 50,000 units on the eshop would net .35 million dollars on Ubisoft balance sheet.

4.05+4.5+.35= 8.9 million on Ubisoft balance sheet.

I would find it shocking if that game had a budget of over 5 million dollars. A game doesn't haven't to move 1.5 million units to be successful and/or profitable.

A real life case example on sales (I wouldn't be surprise if you have already read them though):

http://yachtclubgames.com/2014/08/sales-one-month/

Sales after breaking the 1 million:
http://yachtclubgames.com/2016/04/feat-unlocked-one-million-copies-of-shovel-knight-sold/

Anyway, I guess maybe we are speaking past one another.

@RadioShadow
I think that exact thing is what started pushing third parties away. When the wii u exclusive got turned into a multiplatform game BEFORE IT EVEN RELEASED. We'll see what happens this time. Hopefully not the same thing.

@Malakai
Hey I'm with you as far as Ubisoft go, but people are right to point out that they did more than most.

@ThanosReXXX
Hi, I read a few of your posts and can definitely see your point with regard to what support they did give, but they also did several things that would obviously put peoples backs up. I also see that you are a bit of an oldy, like me, and appreciate your knowledge, but what none of us know is the full deal between the companies. We will never know the real motivation for Ubisoft to do anything on a Nintendo system. I don't personally believe is was just a case of we will make some games for your system.

Sounds like they have a whole load of casual tosh planned for the switch........

@Malakai Indeed we are. You keep wanting to go into numbers and sales, and my primary goal was to point out to people that Ubisoft has released the most titles and supported the Wii U longer than any other company compared to other third party developers on the Wii U.

And besides that, my other point was to make people see the reason why third party developers in general weren't putting in their best efforts, which from a business point of view is totally logical, even though we as gamers are understandably not happy with all these gimped ports, but that is also in part Nintendo's fault, so we can't just simply go and point the finger at these developers.

@dew12333 Yeah, I'm an oldy... At 46 probably an old-timer compared to most people on here and compared to the average gamer in general, but it doesn't bother me all that much. Gaming is for all ages, far as I'm concerned.

What does bother me is that people only look so far and fail (or refuse) to see the bigger picture, pointing and shouting at the first party that appears in front of them, which in this case is Ubisoft, and even though they did some bad and sketchy things (day one patch on Assassin's Creed Unity comes to mind) as far as support is concerned, the facts that I listed still remain.

And although we might never get full disclosure on whatever deal Ubisoft (or any third party developer for that matter) may have with Nintendo, but what we CAN be sure of, is that they are deals that are supposed to be beneficial to both parties which, in the case of businesses, means that they will make a healthy profit out of it. So that is the primary real motivation. And the secondary reason is, in 9 out of 10 cases, that companies see something in the other party that gives them the confidence that this profit margin can be achieved if they work together in some kind of capacity.

So of course it's not a simple case of them making some games. It's supply and demand, investment and profit margins. And in some cases special agreements, such as the possible exclusivity deal concerning Beyond Good & Evil 2.

@ThanosReXXX

I will always disagree with the sentiment that it is "logical".

Yes, I guess, no one can disagree with the number which is like 4 AAA ports: AC:3, AC:Black Flag, Watch_Dogs, and Splinter Cell:Blacklist
EA had 4 AAA ports as well (Madden, FIFA, Mass
Effect 3, and Need for Speed: Most Wanted U)

Was it logical that third parties didn't put any effort into their Wii games as well? Ubisoft released the most games on the Wii as well that were very questionable in quality and some cases the games were flat out broken. The reason that I continue to bring up the Wii and other Nintendo devices is that Nintendo fan's issues with Ubisoft is due to Ubisoft repeatedly release low quality efforts besides even the Wii U. This isn't some just some badly rushed first year ports. Ubisoft continues to treat Nintendo fans as gaming's red head paramour child over the course of several generations across both handheld and home systems.

U say that we shouldn't blame developers for bad games? Is it logical that we should support and buy sup-par games so that we could possible get better games? As some that recently started to play games PC as well as on Nintendo platforms possibly deal with un-optimized PC ports from the likes of Namco and WB and even Ubisoft, that is absurd viewpoint.

So, no "...we can't just simply go and point the finger at these developers." in my view is 100% complete wrong. If a business isn't going to put efforts in to the products they are selling then why should I lay down my cash for them?

@ThanosReXXX

I whole heartedly agree with all your comments, business is business. But you have only a couple of years on me and I am a narrow minded blind Nintendo fan myself. I ain't likely to change either and have no issue with never having another companies game on a Nintendo system. I was going to say 'but I'm not stupid, but actually when it comes to Nintendo I probably am.

@dew12333 Sounds more like a dedicated fan to me, nothing wrong with that, and they're my favorite game company as well (by FAR), but fanboys with blind hatred will never cease to amaze and annoy me, so I hope you're not one of those...

And even if we don't like some companies or game genres, we should still all want them on a Nintendo system, because different people have different tastes and they must be able to cater to all of them, so it's good for our favorite company in general, which in turn is also good for us, even if we would only buy Nintendo games.

I guess in a way, a lot of us older gamers just long for those simpler times, when all of this idiocy and capitalism wasn't rampant in the gaming industry, even though we were at war with Sega fans...

@Malakai No offense, but the way your comment comes across to me is either as if you are a whole lot younger than me and simply don't have a clue as to how an actual business works, or you are just an older but REALLY stubborn guy.

Opinions are always fine in my book, but tunnel-vision isn't. One must ALWAYS keep an open mind and be willing or big enough to accept that other views can be right as well, and your own view isn't always the right one.

And when it comes to sales & marketing, all businesses are the same, so even though I'm in the IT business myself, I don't have to be in gaming (or in any other business for that matter) to be able to make the comparisons, because the rules of the game are more or less the same. And I have more than enough experience in the field to be able to make that distinction.

So, you are welcome to think or feel that those things I said aren't logical, but they are, that's not even debatable, since they're facts, so by their very nature, they cannot be disputed.

So yes, it's your view on why and what developers should do that is 100% wrong, not mine. That's simply not how the world works. Businesses need to make money. Their first interest is NOT to satisfy the customer, but to simply have faith in their own product or their ability to market it in such a way that people will still buy it regardless.

I could give you dozens upon dozens of examples of things or stuff that isn't all that good or of high quality, but is still sold and bought by the bucket loads, and that is solely on the premise of it being popular (everybody has it, so must I) or it is marketed so professionally, that people will buy it purely based on that.

And I also thought we had also already established that we were talking about the Wii U, and NOT the Wii, so there's no real reason to keep dragging that console into it.

But since you brought it up again: the Wii was easy money for most third party developers, and making true triple A experiences coming from HD consoles would have simply made the investment too big, because of the optimizations they would have had to make due to the restrictions of the platform. So, for them, it was simply a consideration of pros vs cons, and going the easy route and making simple games was apparently the answer to that equation for most of them back then, otherwise we would certainly have seen more regular titles.

And besides that, Nintendo was partially at fault themselves because of their convoluted online system, so even if games were ported completely, the online experience was still quite a hassle, so for more reason than one, you should mainly be pointing the finger at Nintendo, for not providing a platform that third party developers could do enough with and be interesting and strong enough to support the third parties' regular titles on, but like I already said before, a lot of Nintendo fans seem to think that in order to be a true fan, you must blindly support someone or some company and it is then frowned upon if you talk about their mistakes or say something negative.

I'm a BIG Nintendo fan myself and I love them for having given me so many great experiences, but they are VERY stubborn and set in their ways, because of their still very traditional heritage and also because they aren't as quick to move with the times as the other two companies are, which to some degree is understandable because the other two are much younger, but still: they must improve, and they must do it fast.

But the Switch seems to be just the ticket to make all that happen, and quite a few third parties seem to be genuinely enthusiastic this time, so who knows what great things lie ahead?

@ThanosReXXX Goodness. Wherever you work whatever line of business you are in, God, help me if I have to ever interact with anyone can even write this:

"Their first interest is NOT to satisfy the customer, but to simply have faith in their own product or their ability to market it in such a way that people will still buy it regardless."

(I guess this is what is thought in MBA curriculum?)

How can you make money without customers? For someone that works in marketing I would have had assumed that you would want to at least protect your brand. Also, then what is the point of market testing and/or focus testing? What is the point of getting customer feedback?

Furthermore, I have worked in Food Service, like working a server for a catering company and kitchen prep worker for a mom and pop restaurant while (currently) in and out of college. Keeping our customers happy was the upmost priority for me. If a customer wasn’t happy due to poor food quality and/or poor food preparation and/or the catering event not being set up correctly and/or appropriately for the event that worried me. Why? If that customer need isn’t being met by the company that I was working for that customer would go to a competitors’ business (and for the restaurant a unsatisfied customer could walk down the street to a competitor). Thus, the result would possibly be less business for the company that I work for and less hours overall for me and my coworkers. So, for the lines work that I work in, customer satisfaction is very important. For the catering business it is extremely important to have a great relationship with customers due to the sheer cost of catering events.

Ubisoft brand is damaged in the eyes of Nintendo fans and Ubisoft needs to take a look at that. I will give you a hint. They released very bad games. Ubisoft released trash on the DS, Wii, 3DS and the Wii U. So, I will continue to bring up the horrible games that Ubisoft made on Nintendo platforms. Yes, I’m using Ubisoft Wii support to demonstrate that the quality of Ubisoft’s support is, on a historical level, extremely questionable on Nintendo’s platform. If ZombiU was a such a good game, then why haven't Xbox One and PS4 players purchased like it was purchased on the Wii U? Personally, I won't even look at a Ubisoft game on PC if it isn't the GofY version and it is on sale less than $14.99 based on their release history. I'm not going to even give their Rabbit/Mario crossover game a chance. In short, Ubisoft can go eat crow and sit on a spiked baseball bat for all I care. Ubisoft could disappear and nothing of value would be lost.

But since you brought it up again: the Wii was easy money for most third party developers, and making true triple A experiences coming from HD consoles would have simply made the investment too big, because of the optimizations they would have had to make due to the restrictions of the platform. So, for them, it was simply a consideration of pros vs cons, and going the easy route and making simple games was apparently the answer to that equation for most of them back then, otherwise we would certainly have seen more regular titles.

That doesn’t excuse the low-quality games that the Platform had to endure. The industry pumped that console with trash and took that money to subsidized HD development. They didn’t bother to attempt to even build any type of long term relationship with Nintendo fans. Then, third parties get mad when their games stop selling and paint this false narrative that Nintendo fans don’t buy games which goes on to be repeated ad nauseam.

And besides that, Nintendo was partially at fault themselves because of their convoluted online system, so even if games were ported completely, the online experience was still quite a hassle, so for more reason than one, you should mainly be pointing the finger at Nintendo, for not providing a platform that third party developers could do enough with and be interesting and strong enough to support the third parties' regular titles on, but like I already said before, a lot of Nintendo fans seem to think that in order to be a true fan, you must blindly support someone or some company and it is then frowned upon if you talk about their mistakes or say something negative.

I'm a BIG Nintendo fan myself and I love them for having given me so many great experiences, but they are VERY stubborn and set in their ways, because of their still very traditional heritage and also because they aren't as quick to move with the times as the other two companies are, which to some degree is understandable because the other two are much younger, but still: they must improve, and they must do it fast.

Nintendo isn’t as big as Sony or Microsoft. Nintendo only does gaming. Nintendo cannot depend on other branches for revenue and/or profit to put out consoles at an extreme loss. Sony and Microsoft have done this historically. Sony’s losses on the PS3 was catastrophic. It is very debatable that Microsoft even pulled a profit from even having a gaming division despite charging for online access. Yes, Nintendo incurred losses this generation; but, the totality of those losses much less than what both Sony and Microsoft had loss. Arguably, the jump to HD consoles in generation 7 happen too soon. A lot of studios failed during that period to the increase cost and development time of HD games. (And the funny thing is that a lot of games truly didn’t even run at HD!).

@Malakai Nice way to start a reply...

Look, I work exclusively in b2b so there will be some differences between that and business to consumer, but overall the prime directive for companies is to generate profit, as I'm sure you will full well know. Or let me rephrase that: that is the primary goal for a companies' management. That they tell their employees to execute and safeguard customer satisfaction is obviously a given, but it's not what drives them as a company, strange as it apparently may sound to you.

I think I gave enough explanation as to why that is. Customers being happy is just something that comes along with it, but there's a lot of people out there that actually believe that companies are doing this to please them, and that is just not true, no matter what tale you try to spin from it.

And to top it all off, it's not even personal: it's just business, which is why I'm always so amazed at people saying how companies hurt them or did them wrong when these companies never had any intention of doing so, because they simply don't care enough about the individual to go out on a campaign to insult, hurt or disadvantage them. AGAIN: that's just not how it works. And instead of Ubisoft, we might as well throw EA into the mix as an example: voted worst company for 3 times and yet they are still here, people are still buying their games, regardless of all the complaining and moaning and they will still be here for decades to come, and so will Ubisoft.

Sure, they all make mistakes and do bad stuff, EA killing off or taking over companies, putting too much in-game purchases in games, Ubisoft giving people a day one patch that is almost as big as the entire game (AC Unity) and so on, but apparently, their marketing is of such an expert level, that they can overcome all this and still do business and sell their stuff, even to angry customers, because they too will still want to play the next installment in that series that they are supposedly so disappointed about...

As for Nintendo: you don't have to explain the obvious. We all know that they are smaller, but that wasn't the point. That is that even as a fan or supporter, you are allowed to look at them with a critical eye and see that it is also in part up to them to provide conditions which are good enough to receive third party support, so we don't have to always be defending them.

With the Wii and Wii U, they simply haven't done enough to accomplish that, but early signs now seem to point at it being a completely different situation with the Switch, so here's hoping that this is actually true. You see a lot of people everywhere doubting or simply not even believing the positive feedback that all these third parties are giving. I actually do, by the way, because I clearly see a difference in the way they are communicating, but a lot of people are comparing this to the release period of the Wii U, which is just not the same thing.

But let's wrap up the main topic: of course companies want to deliver something good and they want to be able to stand for their product, but that is all driven by the need/want for profit. Customer satisfaction is mostly a marketing tool, and I should know since that is my area of expertise.

Case in point: on multiple occasions, I've sold more expensive hardware to companies purely based upon brand name while the cheaper stuff that we had available did exactly the same and would have been just fine for them, so they could have saved money, which would have arguably made them happier, but they didn't, so that is an example, and I could give you some more, also in the consumer area, but I'm kind of done with this discussion.

I don't mind having long talks, but this one isn't really going anywhere, so yeah... I'm out, got better things to do with my weekend. Cheers.