Ubisoft launches new Wii-centric casual label

French publisher/developer Ubisoft has announced that it will be launching a new casual line of games, dubbed Play Zone. The brand will focus exclusively on creating party games for the Wii.

"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 minigames," John Parkes, Ubisoft's EMEA marketing director said. "The Play Zone label will provide them with the best games to mingle and compete together in a fun and friendly atmosphere."

The first game to come out on the label will be the terribly original Sports Party, which features a total of nine different sports minigames. These games include: basketball (which consists of three different mini-games), croquet, lawn darts, badminton, volleyball, horseshoes, and mini-golf. The game will be available July 11, 2008.

While many will scoff at this move, claiming that it will result in even more Wii shovelware flooding retail shelves, I have high hopes. Ubisoft has finally given me what I've been dreaming about since the Wii was first revealed, and that's a mini-golf game. Thank you.

Ben's thoughts

I'm not quite as optimistic as Andrew, and while I'm not trying to turn this into a Showdown, this move depresses me. I'm holding a Wiimote in my hand right now, and the possibilities for control in games are endless. The built-in speaker, the pointing applications, the motion-sensing... it's an amazing little piece of technology that should let developers go crazy with new and interesting ideas. Instead, it's being wasted by endless minigames and Wii Sports ripoffs. I want to see a company like Ubisoft get serious about making a great RTS game for the system or a FPS with exploration elements using what the controller can do.

I'm not hopeful.

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