Rayman Legends has long existed as one of the few bright, shiny third-party exclusives Nintendo's been trumpeting since the Wii U first had games to show. By all accounts, Ubisoft was fully on board with the idea of Rayman as a Wii U exclusive, talking up all the nifty multiplayer things that could be done only on the Wii U's GamePad as it promoted the game.
So, I guess we're taking all that exclusivity pillow talk back now, because Rayman Legends is no longer a Wii U exclusive. Ubisoft today announced that Legends has been expanded to also include Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions.
"We heard from many Xbox & PlayStation owners and Rayman fans who told us they really wanted to play Rayman Legends on their current system," said Ubisoft's Geoffroy Sardin, in the announcement press release. "We decided to give the fans what they wanted while at the same time broadening the audience exposed to this innovative and memorable game."
All that's well and good, except for the part where the game is also delayed. Originally, Legends was slated to release at the end of this month. Instead, the Wii U version has been pushed to September, where it will launch alongside the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions.
Without reading too much into this announcement, it's hard to picture a version of this scenario that isn't a bit of an indictment of the Wii U's current strength at retail. If Ubisoft really believed Legends would succeed on its own as a Wii U title, it wouldn't be doing this. You don't delay a game six months and add two aging console ports because you're expecting a game to do really well on that originally announced platform.
Regardless, every time I've had my hands on Rayman Legends, it's looked and played fantastically. So if this means more people have the ability to play it, then I can't see much fault with that. Still, I had been planning on grabbing a Wii U prior to Rayman's originally planned launch this month. Now? Uh...I don't know. Maybe when Pikmin 3 comes out, I guess.