Ubisoft We Won't Publish The No More Heroes Remake

While it has been confirmed that Grasshopper Manufacture is porting their Wii action title No More Heroes to the HD consoles for a 2010 release date in Japan, western gamers have a more nebulous wait ahead of them. The Feed's Patrick Klepek reported earlier today that original No More Heroes publisher Ubisoft would not be making a repeat performance for the title's 360 and PS3 HD re-release, No More Heroes: Heroes Paradise.

While this doesn't mean NMH:HP will skip retail in North America, it does raise the question as to why precisely Ubisoft has turned down the rights to publish the title here in the States. Unfortunately, Ubisoft failed to offer reasons why they passed on publishing rights. However, I contacted Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter for his take on the situation. He stipulated that for Ubisoft, it's all about the bottom line. He offered the following:

They won’t publish games on consoles if they don’t think that they can earn a return on their investment. It’s pretty clear that NMH performed poorly on the Wii last go around, notwithstanding a pretty good review. I think that the company probably assessed the potential for the game on PS3 and 360, and concluded that it would not sell enough units to justify the production cost and marketing budget (likely 500,000 units on each console to get close to break even).

EEDAR analyst Jesse Divinich echoed Pachter's sentiments, citing the typically underwhelming performance of console ports and re-releases. He went on to describe what he feels is the primary hurdle facing an HD remake of a game designed for Nintendo's motion-based platform:

What made No More Heroes entertaining was its ability to introduce mature rated content in a core genre on the Nintendo Wii, while at the same time taking advantage of the Wii’s unique motion controls. Half of the fun of No More Heroes can only be experienced on the Wii... I don’t see how an Xbox 360 or PS3 version could be more entertaining.

While No More Heroes did receive a positive critical response, much of the praise it received related directly to the physicality of swinging the remote for the Beam Katana in the game. Lacking that, it's possible that Ubisoft saw the game as a harder sell to critics and audiences. While Ubisoft remains the publisher of NMH's sequel, Desperate Struggle, they may see a chance to capitalize on the existing fanbase for the title without worrying about awareness among HD gamers for the misadventures of Travis Touchdown.

Now, the question is which publisher will be willing to take that risk on a multiplatform re-release of a game that didn't sell especially well to begin with.



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