With Ubisoft, Capcom and Sega, three major publishers are announcing a shift of focus away from the Wii console. Most recently, Ubisoft announced that their casual titles on DS and Wii failed to generate the expected revenue and, as a result, the company would favour developing core games for Xbox360 and PS3.
Despite relatively robust sales for Wii casual games, and particularly the success of Just Dance, sales in the casual segment are expected to be down for the full year by around €160 million, representing a drop of around 50%.
Further market concentration towards AAA high-quality games. Ubisoft has demonstrated its ability to react to this trend through the success of Assassin’s Creed 2, which has achieved sell-through sales topping 6 million. However, not all of the Company’s games have reaped the full benefits of the measures implemented, with James Cameron’s Avatar™: The game and several non-casual Wii titles reporting lower-than-expected sales. (...)
We intend to continue to refocus our development resources on our major franchises and on the Xbox360 and PS3, the two consoles which are expected to see sales growth in games for gamers in 2010. Ubisoft has already demonstrated its capacity for success in the high-end games market thanks to Assassin’s Creed 2, with sales 40% higher than for the first title. The 2010-11 line-up – which is stronger in franchises for Xbox360 and PS3 – reflects our refocusing efforts and should enable us to both win market share and enhance our profitability.
Previously, Sega announced that they will "probably not" consider any more mature titles on Wii while Capcom more broadly notes that "the future is the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360." The commercial failure of games such as ´Dead Space: Extraction´ or ´MadWorld´ is quoted as a catalyst for the move.
This story corroborates my previous comments that the Wii has failed as a vehicle for mature games, at least as far as third parties are concerned. ´Monster Hunter Tri´ and ´Red Steel 2´ may be the only third party Wii titles for some time, it seems.
Sources: Ubisoft, Nintendo Everything, MTV
Thanks to: Joystiq, Joystiq