Ubi Soft and Midway pledge massive Wii support

Ubi Soft and Midway have pledged massive Wii support, announcing a total of seven and six Wii titles in development, respectively. 1UP has the story:

While speaking on a panel at the Ziff Davis Electronic Games Summit in Napa earlier today, Ubisoft North America President Laurent Detoc revealed that his company currently has seven titles in development for Nintendo's upcoming Wii platform. This show of support came as a surprise to many, as the company had previously only demonstrated two of those seven titles: Rayman Raving Rabbids and Red Steel.

Detoc praised the Wii several times during the panel, stating that he expects it to have "a large audience and market." He also stated that he personally felt that in a time when fewer and fewer games appeal to him, the Wii offers plenty of enjoyment. "The first time I picked up that sucker I couldn't stop playing it."

On the same panel, Midway President David Zucker stated that his company has six titles in development for the Wii.

This is truly great news for Wii. We had grown accustomed to the fact that Nintendo is rekindling a lot of the third party relations of old. But such strong support from both Ubi Soft and Midway can only mean one thing: plenty of action games and plenty of big licences.

Think Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six or Ghost Recon. Think America´s Army or Far Cry Instincts. Midway has already confirmed Mortal Kombat for Wii. SpyHunter will now surely come to Nintendo´s new console too. We might even be able to hope for some Unreal title. Who knows?

This is phenomenal news. I would actually be surprised to see those two publishers supporting the PS3 and Xbox360 with so many titles.

EDIT There are news from EA, too. As reported by Gamasutra, they revealed a total of seven titles in development for Wii, two of which will make the launch:

EA executives particularly noted that "...we have ramped up [game] production for the Wii and DS Lite", following significant excitement over the Nintendo-created consoles at E3. The company revealed that it would probably ship 2 titles for the Wii launch period (Madden and Need For Speed), and 5 titles over the fiscal year ending March 2007.

Regarding Wii pricing, EA execs simply commented that publishers would have to decide on pricing themselves, but that Nintendo had indicated that first-party Wii titles would not be priced at more than $49.99 - suggesting that Electronic Arts games may debut for Wii at $49.99 at launch, though they did not state this specifically.

$50 for a Wii game sounds a great deal better than an expected $60 or even a possible $70 tag for PS3 games. In fact, EA pledged strong PS3 support, but had a number of critical comments, too.

In addition, execs revealed that there would be 4 or 5 launch titles on the PS3, including Madden, Need For Speed, and Tiger Woods - the 'launch period' being the 2006 calendar year.

EA execs also expressed skepticism that Sony would actually make it to 6 million units PlayStation 3 units manufactured in the 2006-7 fiscal year, commenting both that "hardware companies come up a little short", and that "we expect that they will be challenged" to make that number - not necessarily good news for consumer confidence in Sony's launch.

Further asked about PS3 vs. Xbox 360 graphical and technical performance for this holiday season, it was suggested that PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 games will look "more alike than different", with additional commentary: "There's a lot of horsepower in the PS3 that we're going to be able to unlock in years two, three, and four."

Interesting stuff from the world´s leading software publisher.

Sources: 1UP, IGN, Gamasutra
Thanks to: TheReturnofSaveon21, Infendo