Topic: Super Zombi U, I'm freely warming up to it

[alegoicoe]

Enough to make a profit, which is more than understandable. It makes no sense at all to release a game and not want to make a profit on it.

But its unrealistic to think that this game would be a million seller, and that still is not a reason not to give gamers a sequel that by the time it releases, sales number of the system would have gone up thus bringing in more profits for Ubisoft.

[Luigi Dude]

Well that's what happens when you release a really hard niche game at the launch of a new system.  If something like Zombi U was to be released as a launch game for the PS4/One, it wouldn't do much better.  Ubisoft like most companies needs to learn how to manage their budgets better because niche games like this shouldn't have to be million sellers to make a profit.


This pretty much shows why most of the industry is going to collapse in the near future because if they can't even manage the budgets for niche launch games on a system that's similar to the 360/PS3, there's no hope they'll be able to successfully manage the increase PS4/One is going to bring to the table.

[broodwars]

Finally, one thing we agree on in regards to this game. I don't know how Ubisoft can make such a claim. Based on Miiverse numbers the ZombiiU community is almost 100k strong, and that's not counting the thousands that decide to ignore Miiverse. WTF did they expect to bank on a launch title.

Well, Red Steel was an awful game, and it was a massive seller on the Wii at launch.  Console launches are legendary for terrible or mediocre games selling well by virtue of being the only titles available.  Given what ZombiU is and my own bad experiences with the game, I never expected it to be successful but it's not hard to see why they thought it would.  After all, it's still one of the 1-2 Wii U games to actually do anything noteworthy with that controller; it had major stage time at Nintendo's E3 presentation; it had zombies; and it was a launch day game.  It's hard to blame them now for taking Rayman Legends multiplatform when their big Wii U exclusive was a bomb.

[oohhboy]

Bloody useless CCTV. Keeps telling me the P226 is in the sewars but I have clean that place 6 times and it stilll hasn't showed. The spawns for the sewars must be bugged since there aren't any containers in there. I guess I have to wait for it to cycle it's location.

[alegoicoe]

Bloody useless CCTV. Keeps telling me the P226 is in the sewars but I have clean that place 6 times and it stilll hasn't showed. The spawns for the sewars must be bugged since there aren't any containers in there. I guess I have to wait for it to cycle it's location.

Dont worry Oblivion has the answer to that

[Kytim89]

Ubisoft is probably working on a port for the PS4 and XBone.

[ShyGuy]

So I heard the sales numbers were 450k WW for Zombi U so far.

[Oblivion]

Bloody useless CCTV. Keeps telling me the P226 is in the sewars but I have clean that place 6 times and it stilll hasn't showed. The spawns for the sewars must be bugged since there aren't any containers in there. I guess I have to wait for it to cycle it's location.

For the longest time I thought the same thing. It's in there trust me.

[alegoicoe]

So I heard the sales numbers were 450k WW for Zombi U so far.

Do that number counts digital sales?

[ShyGuy]

I'm guessing not. It makes you wonder how much money Ubisoft put into the game. They started as Killer Freaks then redid it in a year or so into Zombi U.

At full $60 price that is 27 million gross. Not sure what the profit margin is. Probably not great on retail.

[Luigi Dude]

Well a lot of the major 360/PS3 titles that ended up costing around 100 million were said they need to sell between 4-5 million just to break even.  So using that logic, if a game cost around 20 million to create, it needs to sell close to a million to make a profit.



Red Steel was said to cost 12.5 million to create on the Wii and that was a rushed crappy launch title. 

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2006/08/red_steel_development_costs


Not hard to believe that something like Zombi U ended up costing well over 20 million to create, which means it needed to sell at least a million to be profitable.  Since the game isn't anywhere close to a million, that's why it's far from being profitable.  This is why Ubisoft should learn to manage budgets better because a game like Zombi U with permanent death as a central gameplay mechanic was never going to have the type of appeal it'd need to make that kind of budget back.

[TJ Spyke]

I'm guessing not. It makes you wonder how much money Ubisoft put into the game. They started as Killer Freaks then redid it in a year or so into Zombi U.

At full $60 price that is 27 million gross. Not sure what the profit margin is. Probably not great on retail.

450,000 would be about $26,995,500. Right off the bat Nintendo takes 30% (same as Sony and Microsoft and others), bringing it down to $18,896,850. Retailers get around 15%, bringing it further down to $14,847,525. And I can believe they spent more than that on the game and marketing.

[ShyGuy]

Well a lot of the major 360/PS3 titles that ended up costing around 100 million were said they need to sell between 4-5 million just to break even.  So using that logic, if a game cost around 20 million to create, it needs to sell close to a million to make a profit.



Red Steel was said to cost 12.5 million to create on the Wii and that was a rushed crappy launch title. 

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2006/08/red_steel_development_costs


Not hard to believe that something like Zombi U ended up costing well over 20 million to create, which means it needed to sell at least a million to be profitable.  Since the game isn't anywhere close to a million, that's why it's far from being profitable.  This is why Ubisoft should learn to manage budgets better because a game like Zombi U with permanent death as a central gameplay mechanic was never going to have the type of appeal it'd need to make that kind of budget back.

I think you make a good point. As much as I liked the game, a survival horror with perma-death and slower style gameplay isn't going to appeal to as many gamers. This is one of the reasons many genres keep getting rarer and rarer. Zombi U wouldn't have sold much as a flight simulator or turn-based strategy game either.

[Soren]

Wii U 3rd party support cycle (for future reference):

• No one is buying Wii U! We can't make money that way! Nintendo need to sell more 1st party content in order to move more units so we can properly support it. Until then we're not putting our games on the console.
• People are only buying 1st party content on Wii U! We can't make money that way! We're not putting our games on the console.
• Wii U sales dip, Nintendo doesn't have enough  teams making games to support the console year round. Long gaps without major releases.
• Repeat step 1.

BONUS: Wii U online support cycle:

• Release game with no online multiplayer support   OR   release game months after it was released on other platforms, thereby crippling the online community.
• Complain about the lack of online engagement on Wii U.
• Repeat step 1.

[oohhboy]

I think I am about half way through the game now. Definitely not a game for the COD crowd, even if they like Zombies. Not enough killing and too much thinking. Even when going up against a single zombie its not "Run up and kill it", it more deliberate. A horde of zombies means something really different than a game like L4D.

I did finally find my P226 again when it finally cycled its location. Just sitting there at the far side of a map. I have almost more upgrades than I know what to do with. It appears that you can only upgrade a stat once which is annoying. I was hoping to make a sort of god gun.

I am not worries about the multiplatform games since i have other options to play them. What I am worried about this missing the special games a Nintendo console usually attracts. Think back to games like Rogue Squadron, other people have tried to make games like it, but it remains the gold standard. How many times have Goldeneye been remade/rebooted, yet it is always the N64 version that regiens surpreme. Perfect Dark turned around and died on the 360. That magic is what I look for in a Nintendo console.

[MagicCow64]

Sort of strange that they're just shooting the property in the head. With all of the second screen nonsense devs are pushing, you'd think they could just make a multiplatform sequel with an optional "no gamepad" mode.

[Ymeegod]

Publishers get like only $20 or less per/game sold.  Of course sold means sold to wholesalers/retailers not consumers so you'll have to factor in all the Zombiu games on shelves as being sold.

Still lets say there's 1/2 sold WW with another 100K on shelves that leaves 600k by $20, which is 12 million.
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Some of the blame lies with Ubisoft though; the game had it's flaws, the title zombiU wasn't marketable, and it was released at a poor time of the year for an new IP.  Ubisoft tried selling the game through all the hype it received at e3 but there was to many Zombie games in the past few years to make this one an 'standout'. 

I still think Killer Freaks would have sold better --I wonder if they would reconsidering making that? 

[alegoicoe]

Who knows, maybe third parties realized that having a two console market is better for them when it comes to development costs and sales. Maybe its why all major third parties are pulling support in order to rule the Wii U out the race with the coming consoles.

[broodwars]

Who knows, maybe third parties realized that having a two console market is better for them when it comes to development costs and sales. Maybe its why all major third parties are pulling support in order to rule the Wii U out the race with the coming consoles.

The 3rd parties are pulling their games because Nintendo chose to make a console on par with the 8 year-old existing consoles instead of the PS4 and Xbone, and wonder of wonders...people haven't bought it or its games (see: Zombi U & Lego City Undercover).  I don't think there's any great conspiracy to remove Nintendo by withholding games.  Nintendo designed the Wii U to be irrelevant. 3rd parties are just acknowledging reality.

[Ian Sane]

This really demonstrates why third parties want to make multiplatform games.  If this was multiplatform it could sell poorly on one console and make up it's budget on another.  It doesn't matter as long as the overall project makes a profit, and that's why the PS3 was still getting lots of games back when it wasn't selling.  An exclusive on a brand new console where the potential userbase size is complete speculation is a pretty big risk.

The Wii seemed to be very specifically designed to encourage exclusives.  Obviously there was a grand dream of third parties making Wii exclusives because that was the only way to offer motion control.  In the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox generation, when exclusives were more common, that would have been a good idea but it was the exact opposite for where the industry ended up going.  The Wii U seems designed with similar intentions, where the touchscreen will make the console distinct and will attract exclusives.  Only that goes against the way the industry has run for years suggesting that Nintendo either thinks that things are going to move back towards exclusives or (more likely) they didn't notice that multiplatform has become the standard.  The Wii U will almost certainly not be able to be included in PS4/XB1/PC multiplatform development and will have to rely on exclusives.  ZombiU's fate really takes a big dump on that.  Why would anyone want to dedicate time and money to making a Wii U exclusive and risk having the game not connect with the console's audience?  Multiplatform releases cast a wide net, ensuring that almost everyone has a platform to play it on.  Making Rayman multiplatform made tons of sense because they realized they could sell it to everyone with a Wii U, PS3 or Xbox 360 and hedge their bets.  Realistically lower Wii U sales of that game won't matter too much if the other versions bring in enough to make the overall project a success.

If you think about the possibility of third parties seemingly conspiring against Nintendo to make their console fail, I can actually see a reason they would want to do so that relates to multiplatform development.  Everyone wants to make multiplatform games but Nintendo doesn't play ball.  So a third party can make exclusive Wii U content but that requires extra time and money.  Nintendo is effectively asking them to make twice the content every time they want to make a game or be an exclusive Wii U developer or just skip the Wii U, either by not matching each multiplatform project with a Wii U equivalent or not supporting the console at all.  But then there is a chunk of the home videogame market that probably owns JUST a Nintendo console that that third party is missing out on.  The third parties cannot operate their business model they way they want to.  Thus there is an obvious desire for an uncoorporative Nintendo to either shape up and play by the rules or get lost.  For a third party it would ideal if they could make one game for all platforms and have a potential market of 100% of the userbase.  Nintendo is the one holdout fucking that up but if the Wii U dies then the assumption is that that section of the market will move to the platforms that do play ball or Nintendo will release a new console that DOES fit into that strategy.

Of course it doesn't have to be a specific plot or conspiracy.  There is no collusion here.  A company has no reason to help something succeed that goes against its business model.  They gain nothing from the Wii U succeeding so they might as well ignore it and since multiplatform is the way things go, nearly EVERY third party is going to come to the same conclusion without any personal resentment towards Nintendo or behind-the-scenes anti-Nintendo conspiracy.

[Fatty The Hutt]

I have finally started playing this game, as my Halloween game. I like it so far.


It is definitely creepy. I played with just headphones for awhile yesterday, that was a cool experience.


There is a lot of switching between TV screen and gamepad screen, which was initially a bot of a pain to get used to, especially since I wear glasses and I have to push them up to see the gamepad properly. But I am quick at all the various manipulations now so its all good.


I am about to head off to Buckingham Palace to see what I can do. Should be fun.


I am playing the game on "chicken" difficulty. It is far from "easy" but that is a good thing. I am reasonably challenged and therefore engaged. I am on my 4th survivor so far.

[ShyGuy]

Inside the Palace gets challenging, stock up on fire!

[Fatty The Hutt]

Inside the Palace gets challenging, stock up on fire!

I had a nifty supply of goodies that I lost when I had two deaths in a short time, without killing my zombie-fied former self and looting the full backpack. So, no fire. But the narrator dude just told me the palace is, apparently, likely loaded with supplies, so I had better look around carefully. I think on the "chicken" difficulty they pepper more supplies around. Here's hoping.


I get the impression, though, that the developers made the game possible to play even if you only ever have the cricket bat. I wonder if that is so. I certainly have been sticking to using the bat 90% of the time so far. I have only shot 1 baddie, and that was just to test out the pistol.


I started to play the palace last night but had to unexpectedly quit without saving. Children come first! (Actually, hanging out with my 10 year old at bedtime was way better, gotta admit.) Might get back to it tonight as the kids are all out at rehearsals, but then again, might be date night for my wife and I. Might go see the "Carrie" remake.
(Apologies for turning this gameplay discussion into a personal blog, but such is may gameplay experience.)

[ShyGuy]

There are a couple enemies hard to kill with just the cricket bat.

[MetalMario2]

Might go see the "Carrie" remake.

If you value your money that little, you might as well donate it to Obama. It'll still go to a piece of crap, but you won't have to leave the house.