Has Ubi abandoned us?

[janh]

Originally Posted by Sonarman

Hopefully Ubi will now look closely at why SH5 failed and return to the series core strengths. Interestingly every pro review & user review I have read of the iPhone version say the same basic thing reviewers whilst the graphics are good customers want a simulation and not an arcade game even on mobile platforms.

Above and beyond anything else though they need to start listening to and communicating with their customers not just their shareholders.

How many times was that hope expressed in the past, particularly after SHIV release? I bet the decision to end SH franchise -- at least for an extended break -- was made by Ubi management already in autumn/winter 2009. To many indications and contradictions with Ubi's new "frequent release" strategy appeared until now, and the decisions to cut the game content and release it prior to thorough debugging and play testing, lack of communication etc -- this all fits only one scenario...

I think Ubisoft as a company is dedicated to make money, pay dividents and expand its reach. And do so with the least investments to get biggest return on those investment. Any franchise like detailed, realistic simulations of any kind do not exactly match that condition. I think they are simply refocusing on different consumer types and markets, and will leave the simulation market to small specialty companies with better expertise to do such "games" with huge dedication, but small market impacts.