14 DAY TRIAL // Ubisoft sends word that it is launching a new division in charge of creating Nintendo Wii titles, with a casual audience in mind and with rather simple gameplay mechanics. The division will be called Play Zone and it already has a videogame under development, called Sports Party.
Sports Party seems to borrow a lot from the Wii Sports concept created by Nintendo. The game should be family and party friendly and it will enable players to get to grips with nine sports themed mini-games, each designed to maximize the competitiveness while minimizing the time needed to play a round of the game. So far Ubisoft has declared that basketball, horseshoe throwing and croquet are among the available mini-games but you also get to play lawn darts, badminton, volley ball and mini-golf.
The game is set to arrive in July 2008 and promises to make creative use of the unique control scheme of the Wii.
John Parkes, who is marketing director at Ubisoft, thinks that, "With our new Play Zone party titles, the Wii gamers who like to spend time with friends and family will have fun with the Wii through innovative and involving mini-games. The Play Zone label will provide them with the best games to mingle and compete together in a fun and friendly atmosphere".
Major publishers, like Ubisoft and Electronic Arts, are gradually seeing that Nintendo's strategy of developing titles that are accessible to a wide array of gamers and are playable by more than one person is a winning one, so they're trying to imitate the more successful products that Nintendo shipped for the Wii, if not in form then at least in concept. It remains to be seen whether gamers will be interested in titles that clearly imitate other games and how Ubisoft's Play Zone division will fare in time.