While Nintendo might be riding high on Pokemon GO-induced waves, the company still has one major question mark: what the hell is happening with NX?
One person who undoubtedly does know is Yves Guillemot, the co-founder and chief executive of Ubisoft. After all, he’s the head of a major publisher — you’d expect Nintendo would have shown him what it looks like. And as it turns out, Guillemot really liked what he saw.
The Ubisoft CEO was bullish about Nintendo’s upcoming console during the publisher’s latest conference call, where Ubi’s Q1 results for fiscal 2016/2017 were discussed. When the topic of NX came up, Guillemot was brief but optimistic.
“On the NX, what we’ve seen is really great. We think having a new machine coming is going to help the industry to continue to grow, and to take a lot more casual players back to the industry.”
Guillemot also said that Ubisoft had high hopes for STEEP and For Honor as esports titles, adding that Rainbow Six: Siege would get more competitions over time to strengthen its presence in the competitive scene.
“And the two other games, For Honor — is done to be able to be strong on esports,” the Ubisoft CEO said. “STEEP is also a game that has been created having in mind the fact that it could become a big esport game. So those three will be very competitive games and will be very successful on that segment of the market.”
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18 responses to “Ubisoft’s CEO Believes Nintendo NX Will Bring Back Casual Gamers”
I’m sure that Ubisoft will also be right there releasing titles for it from day one and ensuring its success in the marketplace instead of hanging back waiting to see how it performs before making any commitment to it. The “casual gamer” comment has me wondering if it’s just a case of being overly optimistic though. Most of the casual market is already happy with their mobile games so unless the NX can complement it people won’t really be willing to pay for something that doesn’t offer better games than a mobile device.
I’m looking forward to Ubisoft’s secret best launch title, just like they managed with Red Steel, ZombiU and Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars.
Yeah I think ubisoft is like the only third party that tried last time (outside of sega), in saying that, I think the NX is going to flop hard and will be a complete failure.
Why do you say that it’s going to be a failure when you don’t know what the NX is yet?
I kinda agree. all my love for Nintendo, but aside from Pokemon Go their innovations are about a 50/50 success rate. maybe its different in Japan but they seem kind of out of touch to me and i would not be surprised if the NX, despite all the talk about being the next big leap in gaming tech, turns out to be relatively unimpressive technology by today’s standards. I mean, i will still buy and play the shit out of it but that’s just how i feel at the mo.
I HOPE they prove me wrong though.
Because they are so out of touch. Their innovations are hit and miss and the actual multiplayer/social aspects of their console networks are horrid and far behind the competitors.
So basically you are making projections on the next console by the current one? How good would have that worked back in the Gamecube era?
It seems to me that when you say “think”” you mean “hope” as in nothing would bring your more pleasure than having your baseless naysaying proven right.
A good portion of the games that Ubisoft likes to make can be freely described as “casual” but if you try and apply that term to the lot that only seems to buy GTA or the lot that only seems to buy COD, or the lot that only seems to buy Sports Game This Year you best keep your head down.
A console in the modern gaming industry is different to what a console was, even last generation. There’s something to be said for leaving ‘the wars’ behind and going after a different audience. Apple did that. Amazon might be the next to try. A console that can work without the likes of the major third party publishers is a console that pisses off those publishers, it definitely doesn’t make them envious. Activision/EA/Take Two/etc absolutely rule the roost when it comes to the business of console owners, they are going to continue to view Nintendo and of course Valve as competitors moreso than partners.
“Casual gamers”? There’s the first nail for NX. 🙁
It would be nice to have a Nintendo console as the centrepiece of my gaming collection again, but I fear those glory days are gone.
I don’t know. The Wii U was the centerpiece of my consoles until they pretty much stopped releasing new games for it. Now it is the PS4…….but there isn’t a lot there to tickle my fancy either to be honest.
Yeah, casual gamers are currently playing, for free, a huge and ever growing number of games on tablets and phones. They can’t possibly hope to replicate the success of the Wii, a decade later
So I guess this is confirmation that you will in fact be able to play Just Dance on the NX.
Though we already had confirmation of that when we found out the NX does indeed exist 😛
Put Pokemon on the NX = Profit
Nope. If anything the success of Pokemon Go means that the casual market is well and truly ensconced in their smartphones.
I dunno… At this point, appealing to gamers would probably work better in the long run. If Nintendo releases a powerful new console with amazing features and then decodes to release boring casual games like Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival 2 or another samey iteration of Mario Tennis, it will be a huge missed opportunity.
Mobile games are where the casuals are at. the only reason to buy a Nintendo console is for the games that are console exclusive .
I hope “casuals” doesn’t mean it’ll be next gen waggle trying to emulate the success of the Wii.
I mean I’m stupid so if it has Mario and Zelda I’ll probably still buy it, but I’ll complain all the way.