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Ubisoft interview - Tom Clancy series coming to Wii, two music games coming, sports titles becoming increasingly important, and much more
GameDaily has an interview with Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot that is chock-full of information. I’ve pulled a few snippets, but please make sure to read the full piece for a lot more talk concerning Nintendo.
BIZ: Regarding Wii MotionPlus, how long did Ubisoft know about it and when will we see games from Ubisoft that make use of it?
YG: Nintendo has been working on that for a long time, trying to see how they could improve the precision. We knew for a long time they were working on that, so it’s not a big surprise for us. We’ll start seeing something in September/October. We already have games that can take advantage of it.
BIZ: The strategy’s worked for Nintendo, but do you think they’re losing touch with the hardcore base?
YG: I don’t think that because the quality of the games on their machine is still very high. The gamers can have great fun with what’s coming on the machine. It’s just a question of games. When the games are great to play, they play them. You’ll always have some people who are unhappy, but I don’t think they’ll lose those [hardcore] guys.
BIZ: Even from a third-party perspective, Ubisoft isn’t exactly bringing hardcore games to the Wii. Tom Clancy titles, for example, are nowhere to be found on Wii.
YG: Tom Clancy will appear at one point. We need to make sure they [look good]. We have engines that were created for the next-generation consoles. We had to re-engineer a certain number of engines to be sure we could use the quality of the machine. Even without the [high-end] graphics, the experience can still be very interesting. … To make sure we can create good enough products [on Wii] or products better than Nintendo’s takes time. That’s why you don’t see many products, but you will see more and more in the future.
BIZ: Does Ubisoft have any bigger plans for the music genre, which is exploding right now in the game industry? I know you had Jam Sessions on DS, but other than that I can’t think of another music title from Ubisoft…
YG: It’s coming. This segment of the industry is huge, so we are going to come with projects; it’s too early to say, but they are interesting projects. They are different enough not to be considered “me toos.”
BIZ: Do you worry that you’re coming to the music scene too late?
YG: With what we have I don’t think it’s going to be a problem. The goal is really to bring something new and interesting – something you will love to do. We have fun when we play with it … The phenomenon is so big – the games do like $1 billion in revenue – it could change, but it won’t disappear. People will still be interested in those kinds of games; maybe there will be more people. And doing a “me too” is dangerous. For the long term, we are building something you’ll want… We have two projects.
BIZ: Are these based on peripherals?
YG: We have two different projects – one with and one without.