Ubisoft CEO: NX will put Nintendo ‘back in the race’

Nintendo has clammed up about the Nintendo NX, but thankfully, the world has Yves Guillemot.

Ubisoft held a call with its shareholders today to alleviate concerns about a hostile takeover by Vivendi, but this also provided the chief executive officer with another opportunity to hype what Nintendo is up to with its next-generation gaming hardware. That system is due out in March, but we still know almost nothing about it. But Guillemot explained to its investors today that the NX has a lot of potential to return the House of Mario back to its former glory.

“I believe Nintendo will be back in the race with the NX,” Guillemot said in French during the call (as first noticed by Chloé Woitier on Twitter).

It’s in Ubisoft’s interest to get people excited about the NX. The publisher regularly releases a lot of software in the first year or two of a new system, and that has helped the company establish new franchises like the Rabbids games and Just Dance, both of which caught on during the Nintendo Wii’s early years. If the NX catches on, Ubisoft will have more opportunities to launch new properties.

And Guillemot is doing his part to give people a reason to anticipate the NX. In addition to today’s comment, he talked about the gaming device repeatedly over the last several weeks.

“The new Nintendo [gaming system] is a fantastic machine,” Guillemot said at a separate Ubisoft presentation earlier this month. “It’s really a new approach. It’s really Nintendo — coming with something new again. We love it.”

Ubisoft is one of the best-selling publishers on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles as well as PC stores like Steam, but a strong Nintendo could keep even more people playing games and spending money. And that’s something that Ubisoft, and every other major gaming publisher, could capitalize on.