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Ubisoft says it’s ‘surprised’ by Mario + Rabbids sequel’s underperformance

AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
The original was great, but it definitely kind of felt like one of those sequels that no one was asking for. I think a large part of the appeal of the original was it was just such a bizarre concept and very well executed on top of that. There was a lot of curiosity just to see what the game was about. That curiosity didn't exist for the sequel. I also predict a lot of people will pick it up, but not till it hits discount bin pricing.

Spot on. I was so ready to love Sparks of Hope and as soon as I played a few maps it just felt like I'd already seen all the concept had to offer in the first. Ended up selling it.

Not a bad game by any stretch, but an idea that sadly ran its course.
 

AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
As the parent of a kid who got 5 Switch games for xmas (and would not consider Rabbids) - here’s a tip Ubi - don’t release a game regarded as difficult on the Switch that isn’t adult orientated. Sales poison.

Regarded by who? The game has a straight up invincibility toggle in the pause menu designed for struggling kids. Unless you mean the very concept of a turn based strategy game but I think that's selling kids' brains short.
 
I think that one potential issue with this is that a lot of people knew how quickly they discounted the first game and were waiting for that initial price drop.

I had a feeling the game would drop pretty quick and within a couple months it had dropped from £50 to £30, so I picked it up for myself as a Christmas treat.
 

SCB3

Member
A couple of things happened

  • It was announced super Early, I thought for the longest tiem it was a early 2022 title
  • It was delayed twice
  • It released in a busy Holiday season a week before Pokemon
  • The first game was decent but not amazing and the weird DK DLC didn't help as you couldn't play as DK in the main game at all
  • They announced a bunch of DLC before it was released, never a good thing imo especially as putting Rayman in from the start would be a good selling point
  • It's price was cut almost immediately, I picked up the Cosmic edition for £30 just before xmas, it was retailing for £60-70 before that
But the thing is, its not a bad game, I'm not super deep into it as I've been getting more into Competitive Pokemon, but from what I've played its a massive step up from the first game
 

Isa

Member
I don't like Rabbids even though the formula is ok(I have the first) and Just Dance is anathema to my very being. I've also grown very weary of Ubisoft's traits and habits as their games cost a substantial amount for rehashed content that quickly goes on sale not long after.
 

Nautilus

Banned
The reasons for that are simple:

- Far more aggressive competition compared to the first game. The first game pratocally had the whole month to it, while Sparks of Hope was competing with multiple games, including Pokemon.

- Ubisoft pricing strategy is bitting them in the butt. People know the game will reach 10 - 20 dollars in price after less than a year so, given the competition, prefers to wait and pay less. That's what I'm doing. Loved the first game, Sparks of hope looks amazing, but I would rather wait and pay 10 dollars for the game, which I know it will happen sooner than later, and I'll play games on my backlog until then.
 

KXVXII9X

Member
As the parent of a kid who got 5 Switch games for xmas (and would not consider Rabbids) - here’s a tip Ubi - don’t release a game regarded as difficult on the Switch that isn’t adult orientated. Sales poison.
Was it regarded as difficult? The second one is fairly known to be much easier and accessible than the first with more options to tailor difficulty to someone's needs. I was stumped on the first game, but I think the second one is much more kid friendly.
 

Camreezie

Member
Type of game i would never buy, and won't play even if i got paid for.

Funnily enough started an Ubi game just yesterday aka AC3. Not as good as AC2 and Brotherhood, but still great overall. Remind me when Ubi still can make some great games with soul.
Games with soul
Assassins Creed 3

Choose one.
 

Kadve

Member
What where they expecting though? Normal Mario style numbers? Cause in that case they where kinda delusional. Also i don't think they realise that the "small things that talk weirdly and act completely crazy" archetype is not that popular anymore.

Honestly, who gives a s**t about Rabbids?
And people keep begging them for another proper Rayman game, especially a 3d one.
 
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Northeastmonk

Gold Member
That’s better than a ton of layoffs, but I wouldn’t count on the series carrying the company. It’s very niche. I bought it for my kid for Christmas. They played until they died and then went back to Animal Crossing. I am starting to believe that kids want mindless, goalless objectives, and no type of “failure” to their play style. That’s just a random thought.
 

MikeM

Gold Member
Not sure who does the forecasting there, but you better account for inflation and recession pressures on consumers otherwise most companies will be also announcing “surprisingly slower” sales.

This is good in a way- force new ideas and better competition for a smaller pool of gamer dollars.
 

yurinka

Member
I assume that it wasn't too smart to release this game that close to new entries of super sellers like Pokemon, God of War or CoD. But well, I assume that as they said the game maybe had a bad launch but will have good legs and like the previous one will have good sales after its launch window, outside that very busy Christmas period.
 

sloppyjoe_gamer

Gold Member
Good to know, I'm sure Ubisoft will get right on that...

3231.jpg
 

BlackTron

Gold Member
I have the first one which is pretty good but to me the concept was held back by the rabbids. I liked them in their first Wii game, but juxtapose them with Mario characters and they seem like they shouldn't even be there. Call me cynical but it came off as desperation on behalf of Ubisoft for their own characters to be in the same room as legends. I would prefer this game with simply Mario character allies/enemies a la Mario RPG and if it were that way I'd probably buy the sequel. One Mario x Rabbids game is enough for me TBH.
 
Bad release timing and just looks like more of the same.

I liked the first and will get this one eventually but really didn't feel any hype for it.
More than that, I think if you look historically, direct sequels to a game on the same hardware tend to not do as well as their predecessor. Had they held it for Switch 2, I think it would've done a lot better. But the fact is, Switch is old and in decline, the userbase is less active as the hardware continues to age, SRPGs have never been a widely popular genre to begin with, and the software market for Switch is extremely overcrowded. There just wasn't much incentive to buy this game unless you're a super-fan of the original. Being highly-reviewed and high-quality isn't always enough with all those other factors at play.
 
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I've played first one and that was the best game I never thought I would love som much. Gameplay, graphics, animations was top notch. Will buy DLC for sure after beating it!
 

Bragr

Banned
I have been anticipating this news for a while. I noticed that the game didn't pop up on used game markets (this is true for Bayonetta 3 as well), which is usually a bad sign with games featuring Mario. It also performed poorly on the Switch top-sellers list.

The first game was unique, but this time around people know what it is and they won't be able to get the same sort of hype and word-of-mouth. They needed to go deeper, feature Rayman from the get-go, go to a Nintendo-themed world, go to an Assassins Creed-themed world, feature multiplayer, whatever it takes to get onto the hype radar.

That never happened though, and the game ended up being most appealing to big fans of the first game, which is too few to generate anywhere near what they hoped for.

It's a shame, it's a great crossover and a cool exclusive.
 
Sure but its gonna have an ongoing story dripfeed to you for years. The days of one and done are over for ubi games.

DLC type content updates wouldn't be a bad thing necessarily. It's all the little MTX and the grind to encourage user spending that bothers me more than anything.
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
I am one of the few who have it, and it’s a good sequel. Problem is that the original came out in those early days of the Switch when people were hungering for content and it could stand out. This one took wayyyyyyyy too long to come out (five years between games!) and launched on a platform with Pokémon, Animal Crossing, Bayonetta, Xenoblade 3, P5R, etc. Etc. It just got pinched from all sides.

I don’t know why it took them so long to ship this game but something is really screwed up with Ubi these days, according to Wiki it took five studios around the world to make this game and of course it had serious delays.
 
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It's one of the more interesting Mario spinoffs in a long while, especially since it feels even closer to a Mario RPG now and doesn't rely on your typical mushroom kingdom level themes. But overall it's still a far cry from classics like Paper Mario 1 and 2, especially since all the characters are pale and passive. So it's not like this is deserving of a sales breakthrough or anything. I'm sure it still sold more than many better games out there.
 
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I enjoyed Mario + Rabbids a lot, but I’m not sure how they can miss why the first game was such a success. It was a Mario licensed game in the first year of the Switch’s life cycle. Although there were huge releases that year, Switch owners were hungry for new content and, like Golf Story, early games did better than they would have fared when there are more options to play. They made a SRPG which is definitely not a mainstream genre, even if you put Mario in it. And they released it right around GOWR and Pokémon Sc/Vi, towards the inevitable end of the Switch’a life cycle. I am not at all surprised and am shocked why Ubisoft would be, this just seems to be a reaction due to their latest earnings release, they’re under pressure because they screwed up with a bunch of other games and are in the spotlight shaking and stammering.
 

Tams

Member
People knowing that it would get a price cut/go on sale is absolutely on issue, and is now even more reinforced.

And it just makes it even more obvious why Nintendo almost never discount their own games; they know it lowers the perceived value of their games and that a lot of people then just wait for it to go on sale.

The publisher is the reason.

If Ubi developed but Nintendo published, then I wouldn't have waited for a price drop and expected lots of shitty MTX. Even if the latter never happened, that's all I could think of. Their name as a publisher is dirt.
Umm, most people don't know the names of most publishers, let alone give a shit about them.
 
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Shut0wen

Banned
Still have to finish the first game, but out of all the xcom style clones this is by far one of the best ones though when will ubisoft realise that no one actually gives a flying shit about there rabbids, they are cringier then the minions
 
Games get canceled all the time, probably most of the time without public notice, but canceling 7 games in a rather short period sounds like drastic cost cutting and immediately losing confidence in all of them at once, seems weird, as though no one believed in any of them ever. Investing any dev's time is only done if you initially think you get your money back and none of those was promising enough? So all involved are rather used in sure investments like AC? Maybe early, still cheap stages but probably resulting in even less risk, more AC and just "mega-brands". Very much like EA and AB almost no smaller titles anymore? I doubt this is great for an extended period of time. No idea how anyone can play CS forever, but I am also not interested in playing real football or basketball every day so what do i know, but before something becomes a megabrand you have to occasionally throw new shit on the wall and see what sticks. Milking Fifa/EA football and Madden works forever, but even among those gamers I think many want every now an then something else, not just CoD, Fifa, CS, AC, Fortnite every day. I guess Tencent and Embracer studios might actually fill that AA gap that did not work that well for quite a while now.

working on 4 AC games, Avatar and Star Wars alone is probably more than enough even for an armada of studios and they work on Skull Bones, PoP Remake, another FC, another Rainbow Six? Some guys still tinkering with BG&E, maybe something in UbiArt framework, Just Dance? Splinter Cell probably also had some prototypes here and there.
 

Fbh

Member
I enjoyed the first game, even bought the DK DLC which was great. But for some reason I don't have much of a desire to play this. I got my fill from the previous game and don't really need more.
Though the fact this is the one new Mario game on the Switch that you know will be like $30 or less in a few months doesn't help either.
 

BootsLoader

Banned
Ubisoft needs to get this shit together. They release garbage games and wait for them to sell because of the “name”, Assassins Creed for example, every year we get a re-skin. How long they thought they would get away with this?
 

shiru

Banned
I'm not surprised. Took too long, had little fanfare, and looked rather ugly and unpolished, in contrast to the first one. I'd also say people may be getting tired of the rabbids.
 

Sygma

Member
Released too close to Midnight Suns, Tactics Ogre and Pokemon for the people who actually bought the first to care. Like it got successful, but not to that point. Also both midnight suns and tactics ogre are way better purely from a combat / tactics perspective, even if admittedly Midnight Suns didn't sell that well either
 
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