Ubisoft on XBLA: Getting more people interested in games

James Regan, Ubisoft‘s diurector for new business development, spent some time with Gamespot to answer some questions about their first entry into the XBox Live Arcade scene, and their thoughts about the Xbox Live in general.

One thing asked by Gamespot was why big names in development and publishing are taking their time to add new titles onto online distribution services like XBLA. According to Regan, they’ve decided to make the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game their first foray into XBLA to coincide with the upcoming release of the TMNT movie, betting on their game to be a big hit as a result.

“We’ve been on the periphery for a while now,” said Regan, “observing and doing our own investigating to see what people responded well to and what they were most interested in playing.”

Ubisoft also seems rather excited about their entry into the online distribution game, saying that it’s got the potential to widen the userbase through services like Xbox Live and PC-based downloads. While they will be expanding more into the XBLA market, they’ll be making sure to give a good mix of both traditional and casual games to appeal to a wide audience. Said Regan, “We see Live Arcade as well as PCs as being a great way to get more people interested in games. They can both help broaden the market. We plan to bring more downloadable PCs games to consumers as well.”

As for future releases, Ubisoft assures us that we’ll be seeing “some of its popular franchises and some completely new content to Live Arcade in the future.” Hopefully that’ll mean a return of the old-school Prince of Persia to XBLA in the future, as well as the return of the Myst series as well.

James Regan, Ubisoft‘s diurector for new business development, spent some time with Gamespot to answer some questions about their first entry into the XBox Live Arcade scene, and their thoughts about the Xbox Live in general.

One thing asked by Gamespot was why big names in development and publishing are taking their time to add new titles onto online distribution services like XBLA. According to Regan, they’ve decided to make the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game their first foray into XBLA to coincide with the upcoming release of the TMNT movie, betting on their game to be a big hit as a result.

“We’ve been on the periphery for a while now,” said Regan, “observing and doing our own investigating to see what people responded well to and what they were most interested in playing.”

Ubisoft also seems rather excited about their entry into the online distribution game, saying that it’s got the potential to widen the userbase through services like Xbox Live and PC-based downloads. While they will be expanding more into the XBLA market, they’ll be making sure to give a good mix of both traditional and casual games to appeal to a wide audience. Said Regan, “We see Live Arcade as well as PCs as being a great way to get more people interested in games. They can both help broaden the market. We plan to bring more downloadable PCs games to consumers as well.”

As for future releases, Ubisoft assures us that we’ll be seeing “some of its popular franchises and some completely new content to Live Arcade in the future.” Hopefully that’ll mean a return of the old-school Prince of Persia to XBLA in the future, as well as the return of the Myst series as well.