Watch Dogs and The Crew Are Delayed


Ubisoft has announced that both Watch Dogs and it’s open world racer The Crew are delayed until spring 2014.

The Watch Dogs delay includes all versions of the game, next gen and current gen. The team issued the follow statement:

“Our ambition from the start with Watch Dogs has been to deliver something that embodies what we wanted to see in the next-generation of gaming. It is with this in mind that we’ve made the tough decision to delay the release until Spring 2014.

“We know a lot of you are probably wondering ‘why now?’ We struggled with whether we would delay the game. But from the beginning, we have adopted the attitude that we will not compromise on quality. As we got closer to release, as all the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place in our last push before completion, it became clear to us that we needed to take the extra time to polish and fine tune every detail so we can deliver a truly memorable and exceptional experience.

“We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you. We thoroughly enjoy and appreciate the way you respond on the web, at events, press conferences and during other opportunities we have to interact. Your passion is what drives us.

“We can’t wait to see you in Chicago next Spring. We are confident you’ll love this game as much as we love working on it.”

Originally, Watch Dogs was planned for November 19th in North America and November 22nd in Europe. Next generation console were to release a week later.

Those who had pre-ordered a PlayStation 4 bundle with the game will be honored and Sony is working with Ubisoft and various retail partners to work it out. GameStop and Amazon are contacting customers with such pre-orders to work something out, either by changing to a different bundle or getting a console on release and the game later on.

This is a big blow to the next generation of consoles as it is removing a big tentpole game in the launch lineup. Financial analysts say it will affect Ubisoft’s share price, but it also may affect launch sales of the new consoles.

Likewise, Ubisoft has The Crew was previously planned for fiscal year 2013-14 has been pushed back for fiscal year 2014-15. The earliest it will see release is April 2014.