Following yesterday's announcement of a Rayman Legends delay, angry Wii U owners (I swear, it wasn't me!) took to the web and Miiverse to let off some steam, trashing Ubisoft for the decision to delay a game that was mere weeks away from releasing.. And so did one of the game's developers, supposedly, expressing distaste with the decision. The supposed developer, who posted on a forum under the username Zeta69 says the game is ready, even posting on January 9th that development had come to a close. This user account appears to be an ex-Ubisoft Montpellier who's spoke of representing the game at E3 in the past.
I completely understand you but you have to understand one thing. This is not a decission taken by the development team, this comes from really really high up, so please don't pick on the game. If you're pissed, imagine how we feel. Think on the situation, we've been making overtime with this game practically since May preparing E3, and then almost a demo per month (gamescon, Wii U presentation, shops, eShop, etc…) and at the same time trying to actually finish the game. We had a first delay because it was obvious we couldn't finish on time but we gave it all to be there on February. What face do you think we had when the week we had to close the game we're being told it's not going to be released? I couldn't believe it.
…it was a hell to swallow these news. Even then I'm firm in what I said back in the day, Rayman Legends is an excellent game and will still be, and the team that's making it doesn't deserve to have your back turned on them just because some men in ties one day took a wrong choice. This industry is really that shitty.
Ouch.
To make up for the mess, Ubisoft announced on Facebook that Wii U owners will be treated with an all-new Rayman Legends playable demo. They probably did this, too, because the original demo was capped, limiting users to only 30 times playing the demo.
But it still leaves the question as to why. If the game is nearly finished, why not release it for the Wii U as a timed-exclusive, then release the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions this September? I can't say if it's true, but speculation is pointing to Microsoft forcing publishers to launch products the same day as other consoles with no content disparity between versions.
A rep for Ubisoft has given this statement in regards to why Ubi has made this decision:
We usually release all of our platforms simultaneously (aside from PC). We've made special exception sometimes in the past but it's definitely just on a case by case basis and not our standard practice. In this case, Ubisoft recently decided they wanted to release the game on multiple platforms so the decision was made to launch them all at the same time rather than separately. I know it's not an elaborate, 'convincing' answer, but it's the simple truth.
Whatever the case may be, we're stuck waiting until September for the full game.
