Why Many Launch Games Get Crummy Reviews

It’s a rare thing to find a console launch title that isn’t either “meh” or “ungh”. There are a number of reasons for this, which you or I could speculate about all day long, but why don’t we see what a guy who works for Ubisoft has to say instead.

In an interview with GI.biz, Tony Key – senior vice president of sales and marketing at Ubisoft – has explained some of the business behind launch titles (notably those with multiplatform releases) getting only so-so reviews. And he should know, since Ubisoft normally likes to hit a console launch hard

“Right now, all publishers are transitioning their development resources,” Key says. “For a game like Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag, most of the sales are still going to be on current generation platforms. We can’t make a version for PlayStation 4 or Xbox One that’s so wildly different that we can’t market them together. So, for now, developers and designers are focused on making a game that works really well on all of the systems – but as we transition resources to the next gen, it’s going to be more difficult to do that because the power of these machines is going to allow so much more creativity.”

So yeah, we’re also in for a rough ride so long as these companies need to keep making games like Assassins Creed, Battlefield, Call of Duty and sports titles for the Xbox 360 and PS3.

As for why we’re getting sucky games that don’t have current-gen versions, well…hey, sucky games get released all the time. No avoiding that.

Ubisoft explains why launch games underwhelm [GI.biz]