French publisher striving for "Nintendo-like quality" in future releases.
At the BMO Capital Markets' Annual Interactive Entertainment Conference in New York City on Tuesday, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot delivered a presentation that was not short on praise for Nintendo. He was particularly enamored with Nintendo's success in both the handheld and console markets, as well as their strategy of attracting casual gamers outside of the usual hardcore gaming market.
"[Nintendo's mass market strategy] is very profitable for Nintendo, and very profitable for all third-party publishers," he said. "...Because [the strategy] is working, we create more product [for Nintendo platforms] and this will actually bring more people into the industry. The Wii is going to continue to do extremely well with no limit to growth."
Ubisoft is actively funneling resources into Wii development, with 400-500 people currently working for the France-based publisher on various Nintendo projects. Guillemot believes that by next year, Ubisoft will be achieving "Nintendo-like quality" with their Wii games.
He also revealed some figures on the current costs of development, stating that DS games only need to sell around 100,000 units to become profitable. By comparison, a game developed for PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 has to sell upwards of 1.3 million units to achieve profitability.
Ubisoft's upcoming Wii releases include multiple games in the Petz franchise, as well as a sequel to last year's party game hit Rayman: Raving Rabbids.