Ubisofts' Approach To New Franchises, Marc Whitten on Xbox One Messaging and Halo 4 Champions Bundle Pack

Good evening everyone.

Here for this evening, A-List Daily interviews Tony Key from Ubisoft on new franchises, Marc Whitten says 'Shame on Us' for the Xbox One messaging and there is a new DLC pack coming for Halo 4.

Let's begin.

Ubisoft: "We won't even start a game if it can't be a franchise"

Source:http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-07-12-ubisofts-tony-key-its-a-blockbuster-world

In an interview with The [a]List Daily, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing Tony Key, talks about Ubisoft's marketing plans and how things have changed.

Tony Key was asked about if Watch_Dogs would become a franchise. Mr.Key responded...

"Absolutely. That's what all our games are about; we won't even  start if we don't think we can build a franchise out of it. There's no more fire and forget-it's too expensive. We feel like we're in a really good place with Watch_Dogs, but until we're the biggest game of the year we're not going to be satisfied."

"Last year we cleaned up at E3 because we were pretty much the only next-gen game around. Watch_Dogs for us is really a franchise because we're tapping into something people really care about, never more than when the NSA PRISM scandal broke."

We've already seen Assassin's Creed go into an annual franchise title, maybe the same will happen to Watch_Dogs. After seeing some gameplay footage of Watch_Dogs, more of that isn't a bad thing.
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Marc Whitten on Xbox One Messaging

Source:http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/07/12/microsoft-shame-on-us-for-xbox-one-messaging

In an interview with IGN, Marc Whitten responded the fan petition on change.org and the back-and-forth messaging for the Xbox One since May. That has resulted in an onslaught of negative PR and backlash from the gaming community.

"I think It's pretty simple. We've got to just talk more, get people understanding what our system is, the thing that's really gratifying is that people are excited about the types of features that are possible, and it's sort of shame on us that we haven't done as good of a job as we can to make people feel like that's where we're headed."

Whitten was asked about the Family Share Plan that was lost in the policy reversal, Whitten said "If it's something that people are really excited about and want, we're going to make sure that we find the right way to bring it back."

Recent speculation has been circulating saying that the Family Share Plan feature might be making a return.

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Halo 4 Champions Bundle

Source:http://blogs.halowaypoint.com/Headlines/post/2013/07/10/The-Halo-Bulletin-71013.aspx

(Image from Halo Waypoint Blog)

For those of you Halo fans who have been waiting for more Halo 4 DLC, the awesome people at 343 have revealed the Halo 4 "Champions Bundle".

This bundle will come with several packs that come with new weapon skins,new  maps, new Spartan playercard stances, new armor skins and new armor mods.

Here are the packs in the bundle.

• Bullseye Pack(Which includes the new game type Richochet)
• Steel Skin Pack
• Infinity Armor Pack

These new maps are called Vertigo.

Pitfall, the remake of the map 'The Pit' from Halo 3.

And here is a glimpse at some of the new armor, weapon skins and player stances.

Unfortunately there is no word yet on a release date for this bundle, also you do not have to buy the bundle in order to get all these cool things. If you want to buy them individually you can,the bundle although will probably cost less instead of buying each pack individually.

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Starting with the Ubisoft article.

I really hope that this doesn't mean we get new games added into the series that don't refresh the series and only offer little improvements in the gameplay.

I did not like AC Brotherhood or Revelations, of the past 3 years in AC games the only AC game I actually enjoyed was Assassin's Creed 3. That is how you do an annual game right.


As for the comments made by Marc Whitten.

I've been wondering how long it would take someone from Microsoft to say "Sorry guys, we made a mistake here."

Right now, even though the Xbox One is selling out at retailers, it still has a horrible reputation. Many of you might have heard this or seen this at the EVO 2013 stream today, when the Xbox One was mentioned.....even just the name 'Xbox One' people booed after the Xbox One was mentioned.

The simple mention of the name resulted in backlash from the players attending EVO.

I'm sorry to say this about the Xbox, but I think based on how poorly the messaging and advertising of the console was handled, has tarnished the name Xbox for quite sometime. This all started with the console reveal, after that I think pretty much anything Microsoft said or did would be met with an abundant amount of criticism.

You know Sony fanboys are going to be using this as ammunition for years to come, you know they are.

It's 2013 you guys, give the console war a rest. It's pointless and there's no need for it, people will buy what they want to buy, regardless of what is said about the console.

And finally the Halo 4 bundle.

Oh man, you know people said that 343 would ruin Halo. I think 343 has just shown that they can handle Halo better than Bungie did, Bungie never did anything like this before.

I hope I can afford the bundle pack and get a chance to play Ricochet.


Thanks for reading you guys, I hope you have a good night(or day).

Soon to come is a review on TMNT 3:Mutant Nightmare, the LSAT LMG and Ghostbusters: The Videogame.