Despite Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemont praising the Wii U numerous times this year, and with the company developing the very promising ZombiU as well as bringing Assassin’s Creed III to Nintendo’s new console, it seems work has stalled on the Wii U version of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Online. The official line from the game’s producer, Theo Sanders, is that the team wants to focus all of their energy on the PC version before work begins on any console version. His full statement can be read here:
“As of right now, the entire Ghost Recon team is focused on the PC version only. The Wii U version is on hold. If in the future we have an opportunity to address it again, we’ll make future announcements. But as of right now we’re focused completely on the PC version. It’s not a reaction to anything specific happening to Wii U. It was a really fun, cool platform to develop for. But you realise once you launch an online service that it’s an all-consuming effort, so we really wanted to have all hands on deck. It was the same dev team working on both SKUs, and we really wanted to focus on doing the PC version right.
It’s hard to say how the future will go for Ghost Recon Online. I think in the future, as different platforms evolve towards service models and towards being really online-driven, community-driven platforms, then we’ll definitely be looking at what our options are… I think it’s one of the strengths of the PC platform and I believe it’s something that all console manufacturers understand to be a strength of the PC platform, and will definitely be looking for interesting and innovative ways to bring their own experiences to.”
Despite the meek promise that the company may return to the project in the future, reading between the lines suggests something else is afoot, especially given all the references to online play in the PC market. It sounds as if Ubisoft is going to wait until after the launch of the Wii U to see if Nintendo’s new online system attracts the numbers deemed necessary to move forward with a free-to-play game.
With Nintendo due to make a major Wii U announcement next week, hopefully with more specific details on the system’s price and its launch date, lets hope it attracts more positive word of mouth than their E3 showing this year.
[Source: Video Gamer]
