Filed under the 'well, duh' file, the Wii U port of Ubisoft's Watch Dogs is dead on arrival.
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GFK, which tracks the video game industry in the UK, is reporting that Watch Dogs debuted at #14 on the chart, just behind FIFA 13 and right ahead of Mass Effect 3. For comparison, Mass Effect 3 was released on November 18 in 2012.
Much like a politician running for office on the platform that government doesn't work and then does nothing and turns around and says 'See? Doesn't work!' Ubisoft is using the poor reception of the game as proof that Wii U gamers don't want to buy what Ubisoft is selling. One would imagine that releasing a Wii U port of a game nearly six months after it dropped on consoles (and the precipitous fall it took from in the court of public opinion) did not help.
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In an interview, Ubisoft rightly says, "What we see is that Nintendo customers don't buy Assassin's Creed. What we see is that they are very interested in Just Dance, very interested by other kinds of games." The Wii U versions of titles sold very little for the company. Watch Dogs will be the last of their 'mature' (read: not silly distraction kid games) on the console.
And yet, what do we have there? Bayonetta 2, which was released a month ago on the Wii U, is holding steady at #11 on the chart. Nothing spectacular. Last week it was in the top 10 at #8. So, somebody is interested in purchasing "mature" games on the Wii U.
In the meantime, UK gamers will enjoy the entirely glitch free Mario Kart 8, New Super Mario Bros Wii U and surprisingly, Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, which certainly must have been bought by unsuspecting parents. Ubisoft, meanwhile, is still fixing Unity.