As I expressed myself before, I highly doubt we will see anything new before E3 2016 and yet, if Ubisoft is really telling the truth concerning Rayman Adventures being the only title of the franchise in development, then I fear we won't really see anything before E3 2017 or even 2018. It is a bit a sad but we all have to admit that things aren't going for Rayman as we would like to, as Legends sales weren't as high as expected by the company. I blame the following:
- Lack of publicity/marketing (Try to compare with the publicities made back in Rayman 2 and more recently, Rayman Origins. It is nothing related.)
- Bad choice in the (final) release date (Everyone knows what the crowd, kids included (!), is going to purchase if you show them Rayman Legends in one hand and GTA V in other hand. September is not a favourable month for gaming purchase either but this is my personal opinion as I think they could have moved for November if they really had the chance, but then, I understand if there were other factors stopping that option to be put in practice)
- Successive delays (Don't get me wrong, delays are generally a good thing and I appreciate that because it means that the game was not ready yet and needed room for improvement. It makes me relieved to know that delays happened because when I look back and do comparisions of game content in the course of the development, Rayman Legends would have been a VERY short game and with no boss battles (!). I personally would have prefered totally new levels instead of remakes of almost the entire Rayman Origins game. It felt repetitive for players that played RO between 2011 until 2013. Although the game got improved in terms of content, I remember seeing a lot of people angry...)
- Premature canceling of exclusivity (Here's the polemic fact: this game was going to be a Wii U exclusive. Many fans bought a Wii U in purpose to play it, and some of them already owning other systems. Suddenly, it will go multiplatform. I don't need to continue to go on, as we saw what happened. I knew it would eventually go multiplatform but I did not expect to happen before the game release. Fortunately, I also had in account the Nintendo exclusives so I did not get very mad about it but others did take it badly and even threatned boycotting the game (I wonder if everybody was true to their words in the end...))
- Proliferation of Smartdevices (In these latest years the smartdevices evolved a lot. They are more powerful with more functionalities and even more accessible to the general public. The result is that almost everyone has got at least a smartdevice at home and it is very common to see people playing casual games in them. I am constantly seeing that in the train and subway. I would like to think it is a fashion but this actually makes me concerned as a PC/Console gamer as I fear companies will start to ignore us as microtransactions seem to be the real thing now. Even Nintendo announced its first smartphone game so you see. But then, I also highly doubt these devices will replace the "real" games as I don't really see that happening.)
I believe these facts are enough to explain why Ubisoft is not living a golden era with Rayman at this moment. And as Keane refered, it doesn't just apply to him, but also the Rabbids (no big surprise in my opinion as every time I visit France I witnessed a brutal decrease in merchandising stock) and other IPs.
Better times should eventually come.
(a Rayman M scores topic I made a good while back was good fun I remember)
