Watch Dogs

Tinie · 15-10-2013 7:01pm

Its been delayed until "spring 2014" :eek:

http://blog.ubi.com/watch-dogs-delay/

Mitch Connor · 15-10-2013 7:03pm

Hmmm - rejig of my launch games selection required!

Bugger!

That was one of my certainties!

TheIrishGrover · 15-10-2013 7:16pm

Captain Chaos wrote: »

I'd say they just know something is lacking. All the gameplay vids to date have looked great but the game is missing something I can't describe, a soul maybe, it just comes across as a bit bland. I hope it now get the polish it deserves. I always had a feeling this would miss the launch date for next gen and was amazed at Sony's bundle with it.

That one S3 clip they showed (Where it ends with yer man in the boat, going up the river) looked great. But most of the quality footage they showed seemed to come from around that E3 clip. It began to look almost like a Quicktime Event. That Ps3 footage that came out last month looked shockingly bad. PS2 quality.

To be honest, I'd say they got a bit of a kicking. I'd say it was nowhere near completion (And had no intention of being released at launch, unawares to Sony. I can see Sony having some strong words with Ubisoft on this)and is going back to the drawing board. I really hope I'm wrong but I can't see this appearing in Q1 2014. For some reason I get a sinking feeling that this is going to be phantomware. It'll be like Duke Nukem forever.

While I'd hate to see anybody lose jobs and don't take enjoyment in others' misery, I can't help but feel that this is deserved. I can't imagine they ever believed they could release this game on time but, instead of informing us early, they kept the hype bandwagon going.

Ubisoft to lose $560m this fiscal over Watch Dogs and Crew delay

[Link]

Of course I'm not going to do the whole "Boycott Ubi" malarky. It's idiotic. But I am glad there will be ramifications of their regular pushing back practice.

johnny_ultimate · 15-10-2013 7:40pm

I never get why there's so much annoyance over short game delays where the developers clearly need the extra time to make a superior game. If they have the luxury of a publisher willing to grant them the time, they're in a favourable position. For us, we'll have a better game, just a few months later.

Yes, gaming is an aggressively commercial industry where deadlines are a bit of a necessary evil. But better a finished game than a rushed one, a particularly high risk for new generation launch games with great ideas but a punishing development cycle.

If it becomes The Last Guardian levels of delayed, then we gripe.

Sephiroth_dude · 15-10-2013 7:41pm

Not annoyed at all but disappointed, Think I'll be cancelling my ps4 order as this was the only game I wanted

TheIrishGrover · 15-10-2013 7:47pm

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I never get why there's so much annoyance over short game delays where the developers clearly need the extra time to make a superior game. If they have the luxury of a publisher willing to grant them the time, they're in a favourable position. For us, we'll have a better game, just a few months later.

Yes, gaming is an aggressively commercial industry where deadlines are a bit of a necessary evil. But better a finished game than a rushed one, a particularly high risk for new generation launch games with great ideas but a punishing development cycle.

If it becomes The Last Guardian levels of delayed, then we gripe.

Oh, I agree. Rather have a good, finished game than something that's rushed out and it patched repeatedly. But I donno, I just get a bad vibe. That this game is nowhere finished and that it'll be one of those legendary "when it's done, it's done" games like Guardian or HL3 etc

I do hope I'm wrong

tok9 · 15-10-2013 8:00pm

It's worked well for Bioshock, TLoU and GTA.. so that's fine with me.

I'll take a quality product over one which launches with issues and gets fixed.

COYVB · 15-10-2013 8:03pm

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I never get why there's so much annoyance over short game delays where the developers clearly need the extra time to make a superior game.

I agree in general. But generally these things don't make my life a misery at work

TheIrishGrover · 15-10-2013 8:15pm

COYVB wrote: »

I agree in general. But generally these things don't make my life a misery at work

But.... but.... if you work in a games shop then surely it's entirely your fault? I mean you can't argue that when a parent buys an unsuitable game for their underage darling who then goes on a rampage directly and solely because of the game, that that's your fault completely. :pac:

wes · 15-10-2013 8:17pm

Bit odd that the delay is late in the day, but I will have plenty of other things to play this year. Sure, the game will be better for it. Will probably cancel my pre-order of the game, and pick up something else.

COYVB · 15-10-2013 8:35pm

TheIrishGrover wrote: »

But.... but.... if you work in a games shop then surely it's entirely your fault? I mean you can't argue that when a parent buys an unsuitable game for their underage darling who then goes on a rampage directly and solely because of the game, that that's your fault completely. :pac:

Jesus no. A game shop would be hell. I'm in publishing

CastorTroy · 15-10-2013 8:40pm

After hearing this I walked past a full window ad in Xtravision with the old date.

And delayed Rayman Legends earlier this year as well. Though in this case it's not to allow them to port to other consoles. Unless they're having trouble with getting it on all the platforms they want with either current or next gen consoles holding things up.

Hope for their sake that the game is released with very few bugs or else people will wonder what the real delay was.

Also I wonder if this will affect next gen sales at all

Taylor365 · 15-10-2013 8:50pm

Ah well...if GTA V PC is out by then...this will be on the back burner until steam sale for €10 i reckon.

Local-womanizer · 15-10-2013 9:08pm

COYVB wrote: »

Jesus no. A game shop would be hell. I'm in publishing

Lucky you, I was unfortunate enough to work in a game shop, I now hate people as a result....

COYVB · 15-10-2013 9:41pm

CastorTroy wrote: »

After hearing this I walked past a full window ad in Xtravision with the old date.

And delayed Rayman Legends earlier this year as well. Though in this case it's not to allow them to port to other consoles. Unless they're having trouble with getting it on all the platforms they want with either current or next gen consoles holding things up.

Hope for their sake that the game is released with very few bugs or else people will wonder what the real delay was.

Also I wonder if this will affect next gen sales at all

I reckon they're struggling with managing staff resources in the generational crossover. it's that nasty time where you can't really justify hiring people when you'll have staff freed up in a few months when AAA current gen development is finished

satchmo · 15-10-2013 9:48pm

COYVB wrote: »

From a professional standpoint, it's completely rogered my work week.

Rogered your work week...!

Retr0gamer · 15-10-2013 9:59pm

satchmo wrote: »

Rogered your work week...!

Stop posting here and do your job and fix some bugs you slacker! :P

e_e · 15-10-2013 10:05pm

I hadn't preordered in Gamestop before, I can just get my 20 euro deposit back yeah? Might get Assassins Creed IV instead.

COYVB · 15-10-2013 11:30pm

satchmo wrote: »

Rogered your work week...!

Haha you in QC? see it coming?

tok9 · 15-10-2013 11:51pm

satchmo wrote: »

Rogered your work week...!

See COYVB... could always be worse

2Mad2BeMad · 16-10-2013 12:08am

Don't mind , I was on the fence about buying it anyway, least this time they can have a bit more time to polish it off and do anything that needs to be done, because the game looks completely different to how it was at last years e3

Baked.noodle · 16-10-2013 12:34am

Our ambition from the start with Watch Dogs has been to deliver something that embodies what we wanted to see in the next-generation of gaming. It is with this in mind that we’ve made the tough decision to delay the release until spring 2014.

We know a lot of you are probably wondering: Why now? We struggled with whether we would delay the game. But from the beginning, we have adopted the attitude that we will not compromise on quality. As we got closer to release, as all the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place in our last push before completion, it became clear to us that we needed to take the extra time to polish and fine tune each detail so we can deliver a truly memorable and exceptional experience.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you. We thoroughly enjoy and appreciate the way you respond on the web, at events, press conferences and other opportunities we have to interact. Your passion keeps us motivated.

We can’t wait to see you in Chicago next spring. We are confident you’ll love this game as much as we love working on it.

Edit: Didn't notice this was already reported.

http://blog.ubi.com/watch-dogs-delay/

titan18 · 16-10-2013 1:12am

Not sure what to make of this. Quite late to announce a delay, and will probably hurt them sales wise, but then I doubt UbiSoft care too much, as it probably just increases the sales of AC:Black Flag.

Shortage of big games coming out though, which isn't nice.

COYVB · 16-10-2013 3:13am

titan18 wrote: »

Shortage of big games coming out

In what universe

Taylor365 · 16-10-2013 9:14am

Local-womanizer wrote: »

Lucky you, I was unfortunate enough to work in any shop, I now hate people as a result....

Fixed that for you

SmurfX · 16-10-2013 10:10am

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I never get why there's so much annoyance over short game delays where the developers clearly need the extra time to make a superior game. If they have the luxury of a publisher willing to grant them the time, they're in a favourable position. For us, we'll have a better game, just a few months later.

Yes, gaming is an aggressively commercial industry where deadlines are a bit of a necessary evil. But better a finished game than a rushed one, a particularly high risk for new generation launch games with great ideas but a punishing development cycle.

If it becomes The Last Guardian levels of delayed, then we gripe.

In this particular case a lot of people may have based their decision to get a new console on the back of a superior version of this. It was bundled with PS4's and was definitely one of the most anticipated titles. Now some peopel are left with a preorder for a bundle that won't exist at launch.
People usually have more time for gaming around christmas too so to delay until next year might put some people off altogether. If it has to be done it has to be done but only announcing it 1 month before launch will understandably frustrate some people who would have planned their next-gen and/or christmas purchase/gift plans around it.
Also the suspicion that this is a financial decision, Ubisoft have fine form for delaying finished product releases for no other reason than to maximise attention and profit on it.

CatInABox · 16-10-2013 10:27am

Fascinating concept, and the world looked like it had potential, but from everything I saw, what it most reminded me of was the first Assassin Creed.

While I loved that game, it had numerous flaws, chief among them was the fact that a lot of it wasn't all that interesting. That game would have benefited from another 3 months development/polishing, and I'm guessing that something along those lines is happening here.

It's interesting to me that Ubisoft aren't just going ahead with the release, and are taking the time to polish it. I think this points to a couple of things, one being that Ubisoft realised that they could take a half a billion dollar hit to their financials this year, and transfer it to the start of next year, with out too much stock market pain, and second, that Ubisoft are now in a state where they can't afford to have a flop on their hands. They'd rather take the stock market hit than waste all that development money on something that isn't guaranteed to be a hit franchise.

Xenji · 16-10-2013 10:34am

COYVB wrote: »

In what universe

I have no interest in any of the games coming out now that Watchdogs has been delayed, will only have Killzone seeing it is coming with the bundle, looks like I will be playing a lot of the free PSN games we are getting. The launch titles for the the PS3 in the EU were better than this and thats saying something.

Shiminay · 16-10-2013 10:55am

It's a shame to see it pushed back, but I think that we can probably agree that it's generally been a good idea when it's happened in the past and with a bit of luck they'll come back with a new video of the work to date in January to show people that it was worth it.

NTMK · 16-10-2013 10:56am

Xenji wrote: »

I have no interest in any of the games coming out now that Watchdogs has been delayed, will only have Killzone seeing it is coming with the bundle, looks like I will be playing a lot of the free PSN games we are getting. The launch titles for the the PS3 in the EU were better than this and thats saying something.

the PS3 came Launched a year into the generation and as a result got a lot more games than a normal launch Alot of things got ported over from 360 too

The launch of every gen is always bad the 360 had about 2 decent games before a 4 month wait before the next decent game came out

This gen compared to others has a better line-up than any other gen in my memory anyway

Watch Dogs

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