Ubisoft’s decision to delay the release of the eagerly-anticipated Watch Dogs is likely to dampen sales of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
That’s according to Lewis Ward, the video games research boss at IDC, who told told the BBC (via VG247) that he feels the decision to push the game back to spring 2014 was the right call.
“I think [Watch Dogs] was going to be one of the drivers for initial games-console bundle sales and will probably push back some of the hardware sales that would have happened right out of the gate for Sony and Microsoft. But absolutely it’s the right decision if there’s something glitchy or there’s some game-balance factor that is off.
“There’s a lot of interconnections between the things you can control in the game and how the story then unfolds, so I can only assume there’s some factor with the incredibly complex open-world gameplay that’s off. But there’s no reason Ubisoft can’t still deliver what they hoped to do with this game.”
Watch Dogs takes place in Chicago and sees hacker Aiden Pearce waging informational warfare against his foes by tapping into everything from bank accounts, mobile phones to traffic lights. The game combines third-person shooter, driving and parkour-based navigation in one sprawling, open-world playing field.
Watch Dog is now due out on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4, PC, Xbox 360 and Xbox One in spring 2014.