Ubisoft opens casual Play Zone

By Tom Magrino, GameSpotPosted Jun 19, 2008 2:52 pm PT

Publisher reaches out to nontraditional gamers with new Wii-specific label; brand launches July 11 with Sports Party.

For the month of May, Nintendo cleaned up both the hardware and software sales charts. As reported by the NPD Group, more than 675,000 Wiis were sold in the US last month, with another 452,000 DS systems sold on top of that. As for the games, seven of the top 10 software titles appeared on Nintendo's platforms. However, save for Activision and its ubiquitous Guitar Hero III, those best-selling titles were all Nintendo creations, and third-party titles have struggled to achieve similar success.

Signaling an intent to better tap into the Wii market's casual-leaning tastes, Ubisoft said today that it will be establishing the Play Zone label. The division's purpose will be to create Wii-exclusive party games and minigame compilations that "provide immediate entertainment and recreation."

The first title to bear Play Zone branding will be Sports Party, due out for the Wii on July 11. The game offers a variety of different athletic ventures--such as basketball, croquet, lawn darts, badminton, volleyball, horse shoes, and minigolf--and will primarily involve gesture-based gameplay using the Wii Remote. Each sport can be played on three difficulty settings, and the minigames will offer both cooperative and competitive modes.

Ubisoft is already a strong player in the casual game market. As part of its $1.5 billion fiscal year-end report last month, the publisher said that its Petz line of games had passed the 8 million unit milestone, while its Imagine titles had topped the 4 million unit mark.

44 Comments

  • kono11

    Posted Jun 23, 2008 3:47 pm PT

    Why do they don't make more casual games for X360 and PS3? There is another console more than Wii right?
    TheLordMagnus: Yeah, ok they will make more higher Quality games like EndWar, but they wanna reach more non gamers with thou casual games.
    I hope their Wii titles are success.

  • kono11

    Posted Jun 23, 2008 3:38 pm PT

    Why do they don't make more casual games for X360 and PS3? There is another console more than Wii right?
    TheLordMagnus: Yeah, ok they will make more higher Quality games like EndWar, but they wanna reach more non gamers with thou casual games.
    I hope their Wii titles are success.

  • CVM_123

    Posted Jun 23, 2008 11:36 am PT

    more crap games for the wii yay!!

  • TheLordMagnus

    Posted Jun 21, 2008 6:58 pm PT

    LOL didn't Ubisoft say that they were going to work harder to create higher quality games? That certainly didn't last very long. I hope their Wii titles sell horribly and they just stop making games for the Wii altogether. Stop insulting our intelligence with this garbage.

  • Great_Ragnarok

    Posted Jun 21, 2008 10:46 am PT

    DannyRice
    give respect for the developers!! the consoles are average at their performance, but developers managed to bring out some stunning games, that would be impossible without hardwork!!

  • AdrianMeg

    Posted Jun 21, 2008 5:03 am PT

    Oh god...

    Ubisoft doesn't care about how good the games are that they release, they just see that the Wii is succesfull and release junk on it to cash in some dough.
    Sports Party? Its going to be another Wii sports clone to fool people into buying it, thinking they would get something good, but no.
    Its just going to be another crappy game, just like the rest of those 3rd party sports games.

  • DannyRice

    Posted Jun 20, 2008 10:31 pm PT

    Ugh. Wii has much better graphics than people think. Companies aren't as limited as they assume, they're just lazy. No, the Wii is no 360 graphically, but a Gamecube ran Resident Evil 4 and the Wii has twice that power.

    I'm disappointed with companies like Ubisoft. They said they'd support the Wii and instead they give us things like this. If a company made a party game worth the time and money, I'd be happy to get it, because I could get my family to get into gaming like I am. This stuff... Just no.

  • trdrstv

    Posted Jun 20, 2008 10:19 pm PT

    @combatsoldier Ubi soft is great and has tons of quality names to back it up.

    Yup. They just need more of them on Wii. IMO, best Wii game they did was Raving Rabbits (the first one), and it's been a while since that (launch title) came out.

  • combatsoldier

    Posted Jun 20, 2008 2:49 pm PT

    Ubi soft is great and has tons of quality names to back it up.

  • Masterdj1992

    Posted Jun 20, 2008 11:40 am PT

    Ubisoft + Wii = Something to look forward to.

  • DJ_Lae

    Posted Jun 20, 2008 11:12 am PT

    Awesome.

    Even more awesome - the first entry will essentially be a poorly simulated version of 'fighting boredom at my grandparents,' where I can play such riveting 'athletic ventures' (seriously wtf) as croquet, lawn darts, and horseshoes with ancient equipment they have in their shed.

    Minigolf does sound promising, but somehow every company that tries to make a minigolf game mucks it up beyond recognition.

  • kos1085

    Posted Jun 20, 2008 7:25 am PT

    yawn....

  • Paul_TheGreat

    Posted Jun 20, 2008 7:18 am PT

    Yay; more shovelware, just what the Wii needs.

  • trdrstv

    Posted Jun 20, 2008 5:37 am PT

    @combatsoldier I personally dont own a wii but feel as if though this would be a good addition for wii owners. Ubi soft always delivers quality products and I have faith that they will not let the wii owners down.

    No Offense, but yeah it's obvious you don't own a Wii. Ubisoft makes great games from their A team, but they've been putting a lot of their B, C, and D teams on wii projects so far. I like Ubisoft, and don't mind casual games, but their hit-miss ratio has had more misses so far.

  • Great_Ragnarok

    Posted Jun 20, 2008 2:40 am PT

    oh wow, more shovel ware for the wii! just what we wanted /sarcasm

  • Mj-Healy

    Posted Jun 20, 2008 2:05 am PT

    I can't believe Ubisoft sold so many Petz and Imagine games.

  • combatsoldier

    Posted Jun 20, 2008 1:46 am PT

    I personally dont own a wii but feel as if though this would be a good addition for wii owners. Ubi soft always delivers quality products and I have faith that they will not let the wii owners down.

  • miltown

    Posted Jun 19, 2008 11:32 pm PT

    Ubisoft isn't that bad of label. Most of you forget this is the same company that brought us Beyond Good and Evil, Rayman, Rayman Ravind Rabbids, Prince of Persia, and Assassin's Creed. All these games have achieved critical success. I think what most people dislike about this issue is that Ubisoft created a whole new label for Wii casual gamers when the hardcore gamers have yet to be satisfied. I'm not a betting man but I would bet that these games are going to be trash. I love Ubisoft (who doesn't like French people?) but I doubt they will ever reach Nintendo quality products.

  • Saphire_Kitsune

    Posted Jun 19, 2008 11:09 pm PT

    If it works and looks as well as wii sports, and is priced at $30 or less--I'd be interested.

  • mashom

    Posted Jun 19, 2008 11:07 pm PT

    UBISOFT = UBIKIDS growup.....

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