Yeah, but at this point you would just be buying a dead system. That's my honest opinion, not a troll. That's why OP actually asks a good question, even if I personally didn't like Zombii U.
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Why doesn't Ubisoft port ZombiU to other platforms?
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Yeah, but at this point you would just be buying a dead system. That's my honest opinion, not a troll. That's why OP actually asks a good question, even if I personally didn't like Zombii U.
I don't know about it being "dead" it has a decent library if you haven't played some of the awesome Wii offerings.
I booted up the first Mario Galaxy tonight on my WiiU for the first time and loved every second.
friskykillface
Banned
I feel like spoiling the game since many didn't buy a wii u but nah
the game was fantastic, best horror/ survival game i played in ages, had me shook and sweat'n a lot during the game and a decent ending,
was sad when i heard it bombed :'(
it could at least be a PSN/XBL game for $20, im sure many people would buy it
the game was fantastic, best horror/ survival game i played in ages, had me shook and sweat'n a lot during the game and a decent ending,
though im surprised i didn't die during the part where you are captured and only have a pistol to fight 4423890432 zombies, low blow ubi but a good challenge
was sad when i heard it bombed :'(
it could at least be a PSN/XBL game for $20, im sure many people would buy it
No point, it's not very good and you can buy it new for the Wii U for less than £15. Being crap will limit the audience and the cost of porting it means that there is no benefit to Ubisoft in doing that.
The best chance of it appearing on other platforms is if Ubisoft are daft enough to license a sequel and throw this on the disk as a free bonus.
The best chance of it appearing on other platforms is if Ubisoft are daft enough to license a sequel and throw this on the disk as a free bonus.
That's right, it's not exclusive to the GamePad speaker though. If you turn the GamePad volume slider all the way down, Preppers dialogue audio switches to the TV output
Oh I didn't know Nintendo had cancelled all their previously announced games for the console.
OP is not asking a question, he's port begging, it's no different from all the people who asks for Bayo2 on other platforms.
So, this thread seems to have established that it would be perfectly possible to put ZombiU on other platforms, provided Ubisoft performed some fairly hefty rejigging of the gamepad functions - which go pretty far beyond inventory management - to work on a single screen.
So as to the OP's question of why they don't do it, I think we've got an answer.
So as to the OP's question of why they don't do it, I think we've got an answer.
ShadowkillXNA
Member
Nope. For me the majority of the tension came from not knowing when you would encounter zombies and from combat with the zombies particularly when you were dealing with groups.
David H Wong
Banned
So 100% of the value in this game comes from a controller gimmick that forces you to look away from your TV while the game continues on the screen?
No wonder it failed.
No wonder it failed.
Interceptor
Banned
For this problem you had the motion tracker at your fingertips. You know, this gamepad thingy.
Whats more thrilling and appropiate than playing a survival horror game on a dead console?
Nah, i would say 9.42477796077 % But playing the game would help you understanding this.
I wish everything didn't have to be on multiple platforms. It makes total sense from the perspective of a third party, and even a normal person, but I hate it. Makes each system feel less unique and worthwhile when half of the games for it are interchangeable with another platforms's.
Sure ignore the fact that the game was a new IP.
To be honest - although I've not finished the game yet - I've never really experienced the inventory tension thing, because I've always made damn sure there's nothing for miles around before doing any inventory management. The main tension I found was in using the scanner, particularly when you haven't unlocked the map, and seeing multiple red blips appear close by. Cue cricket bat prep, peering round corners, ready to leg it should they all be zombies.
What do you think this thread is? Are you that mentally damaged?
jackchan_fulloffuck.jpg
goldenpp72
Member
Had it released on 360/ps3/pc it would have sold over a million copies, it's not exactly a dangerous sort of new IP, it's just on a system that was dead out of the gate, and I say this as someone who owns both the Wii U and Zombi U.
As a side, I was surprised by Zombi U to an extent, I think some of the neat factor was that I was playing a competent, good, high production 3rd party game that was exclusive to a Nintendo system. Outside of all that though it's still a pretty solid game, it would need to be altered to work well on other systems but I don't think it would be impossible as some imply.
LOL. Touché.
I posted that GIF in response to this post,
Idk whats so "awful" about not wanting to spend 300 on a console for one game. Call me crazy.
And Nintendo Fans, please dont take this personally. But its my honest opinion that the second screen is gimmicky, that whole wiiU controller is gimmicky IMO, maybe not on the same level of gimmicky as the PS Move and Kinect, but still gimmicky non the less. But if you enjoy any of these devices, more power to you. Controller or K/M for me, i dont want to be holding a book sized object when playing any game, specially something of the nature of zombiU.
When i was considering buying the wiiU solely for this game, the controller was one of the main reasons i didnt want one. Now, i havent played the game, this is true. But it would only take a creative mind or two at ubi to replace that mechanic with something of the same nature surely ?, that could achieve the same effect or very close to it (even possibly better), but for use with a regular control.
IMO i think some people have convinced themselfs the game is unplayable any other way but with a separate screen. That is ridiculous. From the walkthrough i watched on youtube, i loved every minute of it. And that was without once seeing the second screen. The game was just dripping with atmosphere, and it had zombies, with hardcore gameplay elements. It looked amazing to me. They could easily implement that mechanic for use with a controller if they put had their minds to it.
Stone Ocean
Member
It's not some experimental platformer or japanese action game, being a new IP makes no difference.
RubberJohnny
Banned
It's no different to having the inventory UI block the screen and the game running in real time, which is only the exact same thing that every other survival horror series (Resident Evil, Alone in the Dark, Dead Space) did this gen.
So the question is, is blatant port begging now accepted? I remember this happening pretty much exact one year ago:
ITT: Never played it, but I dismiss any advantages the Gamepad might give to the genre because I looked at it and it looks too big.
The game DOESN'T NEED THE GAMEPAD to work. But the gamepad makes it feel fresh and compliments the game perfectly. The only way to understand that is playing the game, which many people seem reluctant to only because it is not on their platform of choice.
And just to be on the subject: We all know and it has been said a thousand times in here already that the reason why Ubisoft doesn't port the game to other platforms is pure and simple: money.
ZombiU is a hardcore, unforgiving, perma-death, first-person style (but not shooter) survival horror. It has everything a game need nowadays for not to sell. Gamespot gave it a poor 4.5 score on their review only because the game is not COD. You need to rely on your cricket bat most of the time because there is very scarce ammo. "Oh! You've got a gun? How sweet! Good luck with it until you have enough experience for you to know how to control it." The game is slow and it takes ages for you to plan and lure each zombie out of a room so you can take care of it without other zombies noticing it otherwise you will die. It is not a game that many people want to play, it does not gives you any instant gratification and on top of that if you screw up you lose your gear. If you guys think it would sell gangbusters on PS360 you are delusional. Same delusion that people thinking SM3DW would sell well on the PS4 (with that ridiculous, port-begging picture of a PS4 box with SM3DW bundled in), when titles like Puppeteer and Tearaway failed miserably on Sony's platforms, have. It is a niche title that appeal only to an specific population of gamers. And again, having to adapt the controls for them to work with default controllers would cost money, as would improve visuals and whatever else they do. Money they probably won't recoup.
Port begging is frowned upon because of the effect it has on announcement threads / official threads. If Zombi U 2 was announced tomorrow and the reveal thread was full of 'wish this was on PS4 / XBone', that would be a legitimate problem.
18 months on, there's no harm in discussing whether a game should appear on other platforms. It's not the style of 'port begging' that is discouraged.
soulassssns
Banned
The second screen on the gamepad is what made the gameplay fun as it was.
OMG NO!!
I totally disagree. Much of the tension and enjoyment in the gameplay came from how easy it was to die or be overwhelmed, and the penalty for dying. For me, anyway.
The best thing about the game pad usage was the intimate nature of The Prepper's communications and that could be replicated on a DS4.
Horror games are dead.
The masses want stuff to shoot. And QTEs. And the illusion of choice. And bars to fill. And other crap.
Yup.
I wonder if the same will happen after Bayonetta 2's release. "Why doesn't Nintendo let Platinum port Bayonetta 2 to other platforms?" "But this ain't port begging no no, we're just wondering why Nintendo + Platinum wouldn't shoot for the dollars they left on the table. ... It would be a shame to leave what some call a real superb action game on a dead system."
WrenchNinja
Member
The Bayonetta 2 false equivalency is dumb as fuck. Bayonetta 2 would not exist without Nintendo. Unless Nintendo was funding Ubisoft in making ZombiU and helping with development (which from theIwata asks doesn't seem like it), then there would be absolutely no reason it would be exclusive from a third party developer who puts their shit on everything aside from the fact that it was a crappy selling game and Ubisoft wants to forget about it cause it would be too much work for too little return.
The accusations of port begging and non ownership of said console is really silly.
The accusations of port begging and non ownership of said console is really silly.
You described the game perfectly. I didnt ask you to, but you done a good job anyway.
And i understand your point, and theres probably only a niche market for it on other systems.
But if you read my post, i was just trying to explain why i think it could work on a regular control, and nothing to do with how well it would sell. Im not saying it would be the next cod (sales wise), but it would sell as much, probably alot more then what it sold on the wiiU if it released on PS4/XB1 right now.
Air Zombie Meat
Member
Why do that when they can just cash in on their usual shitty franchises?
Why so?
Bayonetta 2 will surely flop.
And people could use exactly the same argument. Nintendo financed it, it flopped, so they could make money back by allowing Platinum to port it to other consoles. In theory that sort of makes sense. But of course those people don't care about Ubisoft nor Nintendo. They just don't want to buy a Wii U and but still want to play it.
Sega ported quite a few Dreamcast exclusives over to PS2 for example Space Channel 5 etc., so there is no written law that 1st or 2nd party "exclusives" can't be brought over.
Anyway in case of ZombiU, porting it over would probably be a huge waste of money, because they can't just port it over. They would have to change huge parts of the game to make it work. It's way too hardcore to sell huge numbers. Rayman Legends sold best on Wii U even after making it multiplatform, and that's at least a child-friendly platformer. Does anyone really think wasting more money on it to make it work on PS4 or Bone would result in superb sales?
Ubisoft's CEO already said that "there are no plans (or even desire) for a sequel.". He also said "We must find a way to ensure the creativity of those games could have a big enough audience". And look how well that turned out for Rayman Legends.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-07-08-does-nintendo-stand-a-chance-this-holiday
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
Exactly, it's not rocket science. Other games do this.
Just say they got the hardest challenge out of the way and developed some mechanic so that the game worked as originally intended, but on a regular control.
At that point they could port it to PS360/XB1/PS4/PC. Maybe add alittle extra content, afew tweaks here and there. "Zombie - The Directors Cut". Hype it up like crazy and release it 2 weeks before halloween. It could sell. But they'd need to hype the crap out of it all through the summer. Too much of a risk most likely, but it could be done, and successful if done right.
TheRedSnifit
Member
Why would they spend that kind of money on a failed game in a dead genre?
Actual survival horror is the very definition of niche in this industry at this point. This game had no hope of hitting it's goal on any system unfortunately.
I'd love to see a sequel, but only if it's going to be survival horror again. Which it wouldn't be if they wanted it to sell.
I'd love to see a sequel, but only if it's going to be survival horror again. Which it wouldn't be if they wanted it to sell.
WrenchNinja
Member
No, it really doesn't. It's essentially a first party game with Nintendo funding it. One would have to be incredibly naive to think this scenario is even somewhat plausible. This is like asking Nintendo to put out Steel Diver or whatever other titles that have bombed with them on other platforms "to recoup costs". It's not ever going to happen.
Can you explain it? I don't get it :/
whitemex88
Member
This awful commercial for a trade school from the late 90's. That one stupid "tighten up the Graphics in level 3" is the line i am referencing to the OP in bold
TheRedSnifit
Member
This awful commercial for a trade school from the late 90's. That one stupid "tighten up the Graphics in level 3" is the line i am referencing to the OP in bold
Reality: "Yeah, we just finished playing level 3 for the 800th time. I found five different glitches and four bugs. Can i see my family please?"
Use the PS Vita for that on PS4 (optional).
Ploid 3.0
Member
Not that I want the game, but GTA Online was very scary when trying to put money in the bank for safe keeping via phone or ATM because the world was still going on and someone could kill you while you were busy with the menu. Very tense stuff. It works the same. I'd bet you could even have less tension if you put the gamepad up so you can just change focus to see the tv and know nothing is going on.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
There seems to be some confusion about what port begging is and isn't, and also about why we would discourage port begging to begin with (including taking disciplinary measures against it in some cases). Rules don't exist just for the sake of it, they're not just designed for moderators to move their numbers up the ban leaderboard. We look at rules in order to try to help structure the discussions and encourage people to contribute.
Port begging is not the act of discussing the platforms a game is or isn't coming out on, it's not discussing how different types of hardware enable or support different experiences better than others, it's not looking at market positioning of a particular game. Games get ported. Games that say they're not getting ported get ported. Exclusive games get ported. Some companies seem to scam consumers by denying all possibility of a port until just after Christmas, and then when sales have exhausted on the base platforms bring on the ports so they can get double-dipping revenue. Games get ported well after release sometimes, often if sequels are slated to be multiplatform. Sometime games get ported just to re-release the game on a platform for some passive income. It has nothing to do with what platform the person is discussing a port to or port from. These are facts of life. It's OK to discuss them.
Port begging was an issue of people going into threads, often pre-release or announcement threads, and preventing legitimate discussion by leaving one liners about how "lol not buying unless it gets released on ps3 owned" and then running away. It's people having freakouts and meltdowns because a game was announced for the wrong system. The person doing it had no interest in discussing the game, the people who did want to discuss the game can't discuss it, well-meaning people jump down the person's throat creating a derail, and the whole thing becomes a mess. Port begging isn't some magical separate rule, it's the general rule we enforce against trolling, against system wars posts, and against derailing threads. Users who want this big laundry list of legalistic rules are totally missing the point that in general all the rules boil down to "Be nice to other people and try to have good discussions with other people and not ruin their day". It's not rocket science.
Look at what's being discussed here. ZombiU is a relatively well received game. It was released as a launch title for a platform. As with any launch title, it had some limitations probably due to rushed time and diminished budget. Some of those limitations also reflected the state of the platform at launch. It hasn't been followed up with DLC, which is unusual for a title of its genre and scope. It hasn't got a sequel. It's now been 16 months, give or take. Most of Ubisoft's slate is multiplatform (the one exception being maybe Rabbids, which is multiplatform as an IP but tends to get custom instalments for each platform). Ubisoft is winding down support for Wii U. Ubisoft has admitted ZombiU did not sell as they were hoped. If you look at all of this information and think "it's absolutely fucking contemptible that anyone would be considering what ZombiU's future options might be", I think maybe you're getting a little too emotionally close to the platform.
This is not me magically blessing that everything should always be omniplatform and beg to high heavens, guys. It's not me saying that as long as you're not in the OT you get to freely port beg. It's just acknowledging that when we're a little removed from stuff, when passions aren't running hot, when there doesn't seem to be a crazy console war agenda, when it's not someone with a Halo avatar asking for Killzone to go Xbox One exclusive, I think it's fair to say that reasonable discussion can occur surrounding the issue of porting. I definitely see people in this thread who are so preposterously positive about the port being some smash hit that I can't help but wonder if they acknowledge that the game design, as well as the platform, played a role in its limited success so far--and maybe someone is going to have a Wii U more like Wii Poo meltdown in here and get themselves banned. But the discussion itself isn't unfair.
Obviously when a game is an exclusive, and especially if it's published by a first-party, then there's a degree of "suck it up and buy the hardware". I totally agree with that. It serves no purpose to sit around and be bitter that the games you want aren't on the platform you have. Tailor your hardware purchases for the games you want. And if something never gets ported, then that's great. You should probably consider buying the hardware it's on if playing it is that important to you.
Let's also maybe look at people discussing five-years-late ports to PC. They're not port begging. No one is running into an active discussion of people playing through Vanquish the first time and informing that that "720p on the PS Bomba and the Xbox Three Shitty!!!! drop this bitch up on Steamizzle yio~~!!". And in most cases it's not people who haven't played the game who are asking for the port, it's people who have played the game asking for the port. This is more about preserving the game going forward.
There are arguments against and for porting this specific game or any game in general, and we're seeing a lot of them here. Some of them focus on the degree to which the game's design matches the Wii U's design. That's totally valid. There are business arguments too.
Just a little while ago during the lag between Nintendo's catastrophic financial results and their investor's briefing, we had discussions about whether Nintendo would be likely to exit the hardware producing business. The context was that many analysts, investors, and observers suggested they either might or ought to. And you can easily argue against why they should. But it wasn't console wars to conceptually have the discussion, just as it wouldn't be about Sony or Microsoft in similar predicaments (IE "If Microsoft ends up an enterprise company, where does that leave Xbox?" "If Sony is on the verge of bankruptcy, what happens to SCE?"). It would be console wars to enter and NPD thread and announce "Lol Boned again naturally, when is M$ going to give up the ghost and stop pretending to be a good console manufacturer". It would also be console wars if, say, in response to a bad month for Sony, someone with a long-term record of getting banned for trolling against Sony were to make a thread incredulously asking why the PS4 isn't cancelled yet. We don't want "reaction" or "compensating" threads.
If you feel people are posting in such a way that requires moderation response--instead of reporting "rule breaking", try to report "bad posting that really needs an intervention because it's wrecking discussion"--just PM a mod with a quick link and an explanation. Politely, please, we hate PMs that start with "STUMPOKAPOW, ARE MODERATORS BIASED? IF NOT, HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN WHY THEY HAVEN'T ALREADY PERMED THIS POSTER? YOU ARE QUICKLY LOSING MY TRUST. <link to post>", it's very disrespectful. Just link the post, and a mod will check it out.
I hope this clarifies the issues people are having understanding why this discussion is allowed. If it doesn't, don't worry about it, just take part in the discussions you're interested in, avoid the ones you're not interested in, and we'll do our best to clean up the mess.
Port begging is not the act of discussing the platforms a game is or isn't coming out on, it's not discussing how different types of hardware enable or support different experiences better than others, it's not looking at market positioning of a particular game. Games get ported. Games that say they're not getting ported get ported. Exclusive games get ported. Some companies seem to scam consumers by denying all possibility of a port until just after Christmas, and then when sales have exhausted on the base platforms bring on the ports so they can get double-dipping revenue. Games get ported well after release sometimes, often if sequels are slated to be multiplatform. Sometime games get ported just to re-release the game on a platform for some passive income. It has nothing to do with what platform the person is discussing a port to or port from. These are facts of life. It's OK to discuss them.
Port begging was an issue of people going into threads, often pre-release or announcement threads, and preventing legitimate discussion by leaving one liners about how "lol not buying unless it gets released on ps3 owned" and then running away. It's people having freakouts and meltdowns because a game was announced for the wrong system. The person doing it had no interest in discussing the game, the people who did want to discuss the game can't discuss it, well-meaning people jump down the person's throat creating a derail, and the whole thing becomes a mess. Port begging isn't some magical separate rule, it's the general rule we enforce against trolling, against system wars posts, and against derailing threads. Users who want this big laundry list of legalistic rules are totally missing the point that in general all the rules boil down to "Be nice to other people and try to have good discussions with other people and not ruin their day". It's not rocket science.
Look at what's being discussed here. ZombiU is a relatively well received game. It was released as a launch title for a platform. As with any launch title, it had some limitations probably due to rushed time and diminished budget. Some of those limitations also reflected the state of the platform at launch. It hasn't been followed up with DLC, which is unusual for a title of its genre and scope. It hasn't got a sequel. It's now been 16 months, give or take. Most of Ubisoft's slate is multiplatform (the one exception being maybe Rabbids, which is multiplatform as an IP but tends to get custom instalments for each platform). Ubisoft is winding down support for Wii U. Ubisoft has admitted ZombiU did not sell as they were hoped. If you look at all of this information and think "it's absolutely fucking contemptible that anyone would be considering what ZombiU's future options might be", I think maybe you're getting a little too emotionally close to the platform.
This is not me magically blessing that everything should always be omniplatform and beg to high heavens, guys. It's not me saying that as long as you're not in the OT you get to freely port beg. It's just acknowledging that when we're a little removed from stuff, when passions aren't running hot, when there doesn't seem to be a crazy console war agenda, when it's not someone with a Halo avatar asking for Killzone to go Xbox One exclusive, I think it's fair to say that reasonable discussion can occur surrounding the issue of porting. I definitely see people in this thread who are so preposterously positive about the port being some smash hit that I can't help but wonder if they acknowledge that the game design, as well as the platform, played a role in its limited success so far--and maybe someone is going to have a Wii U more like Wii Poo meltdown in here and get themselves banned. But the discussion itself isn't unfair.
Obviously when a game is an exclusive, and especially if it's published by a first-party, then there's a degree of "suck it up and buy the hardware". I totally agree with that. It serves no purpose to sit around and be bitter that the games you want aren't on the platform you have. Tailor your hardware purchases for the games you want. And if something never gets ported, then that's great. You should probably consider buying the hardware it's on if playing it is that important to you.
Let's also maybe look at people discussing five-years-late ports to PC. They're not port begging. No one is running into an active discussion of people playing through Vanquish the first time and informing that that "720p on the PS Bomba and the Xbox Three Shitty!!!! drop this bitch up on Steamizzle yio~~!!". And in most cases it's not people who haven't played the game who are asking for the port, it's people who have played the game asking for the port. This is more about preserving the game going forward.
There are arguments against and for porting this specific game or any game in general, and we're seeing a lot of them here. Some of them focus on the degree to which the game's design matches the Wii U's design. That's totally valid. There are business arguments too.
Just a little while ago during the lag between Nintendo's catastrophic financial results and their investor's briefing, we had discussions about whether Nintendo would be likely to exit the hardware producing business. The context was that many analysts, investors, and observers suggested they either might or ought to. And you can easily argue against why they should. But it wasn't console wars to conceptually have the discussion, just as it wouldn't be about Sony or Microsoft in similar predicaments (IE "If Microsoft ends up an enterprise company, where does that leave Xbox?" "If Sony is on the verge of bankruptcy, what happens to SCE?"). It would be console wars to enter and NPD thread and announce "Lol Boned again naturally, when is M$ going to give up the ghost and stop pretending to be a good console manufacturer". It would also be console wars if, say, in response to a bad month for Sony, someone with a long-term record of getting banned for trolling against Sony were to make a thread incredulously asking why the PS4 isn't cancelled yet. We don't want "reaction" or "compensating" threads.
If you feel people are posting in such a way that requires moderation response--instead of reporting "rule breaking", try to report "bad posting that really needs an intervention because it's wrecking discussion"--just PM a mod with a quick link and an explanation. Politely, please, we hate PMs that start with "STUMPOKAPOW, ARE MODERATORS BIASED? IF NOT, HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN WHY THEY HAVEN'T ALREADY PERMED THIS POSTER? YOU ARE QUICKLY LOSING MY TRUST. <link to post>", it's very disrespectful. Just link the post, and a mod will check it out.
I hope this clarifies the issues people are having understanding why this discussion is allowed. If it doesn't, don't worry about it, just take part in the discussions you're interested in, avoid the ones you're not interested in, and we'll do our best to clean up the mess.
Aaron Strife
Banned
Sorry I didn't see the above post.
Doesn't Zombi U make extensive use of the Gamepad? I don't think porting it would be that easy and it sounds like Ubisoft is done with the franchise. It also wasn't very well received.
Doesn't Zombi U make extensive use of the Gamepad? I don't think porting it would be that easy and it sounds like Ubisoft is done with the franchise. It also wasn't very well received.
Why ?, So give the game a bigger audience it deserved.
Failed game ?, it didnt stand much chance of succeeding with the install base of the wiiU.
Do you know how many 360's and PS3's are on the market ? What about if this released on steam ?. DayZ has been in the top 2 spots on steam since the standalone released, it was in 1st before Rust knocked it down to second. No market for the game ?, more like no game for the market.. People like hardcore survival games.