It's time to critique some business decisions using nothing but sheer speculation and what if's, but hopefully still makes sense.
As most everyone who follows video game news knows, Watch Dogs has been delayed until June. (June 30th if the Amazon release date is to be believed). There's speculation as to why. Some say quality issues, some say graphics problems, while others say it's to stay away from GTA V. It may be for none or all of those reasons.
By doing this, Ubisoft missed a huge opportunity of having a blockbuster game coming out on day one of the new console generation. The list of new games and new IPs for both the Xbox One and Playstation 4 are lacking. Watch Dogs was going to be the game to buy. The game to say "Hey, this is what new consoles are capable of." But that was lost. However, there was a crucial decision made by Ubisoft very early in Watch Dogs' development cycle that may have been the cause of the delay.
That decision? To have Watch Dogs come out on Xbox 360 and PS3.
My question is: Why did they decide to do this? To have the game come out on as many consoles as possible, of course. To sell as many copies of Watch Dogs as they can. But was it the right decision? I say not.
Imagine if Watch Dogs was exclusive to next-gen platforms (including PC). It would be a new IP for a new generation. It would be a reason to upgrade. There would be no comparison of the same game between generations, limiting the amount of "Is it worth upgrading?" questions, something that is bound to come up for other titles such as Battlefield 4 and Assassins Creed IV.
What worries me about the delay is that Ubisoft looked at both versions and said "There's not a big enough difference for people to buy the next-gen version," then proceeded to take out certain features of the current gen and add just a bit more to next gen. If they were just focusing on next gen, then all of they're resources could have been poured into making a great next gen game and not worry about the comparisons. I bet that it would have not been delayed. However, this is all in hindsight and easy to say now, but there is one thing for certain: Ubisoft missed a huge opportunity to establish a top selling IP for a new generation, and delaying it just adds to disappointment and dampens the excitement to own a next generation console.