News of the big Watch Dogs delay left us with one big question: what happens to people who shelled out money to pre-order the Watch Dogs PS4/Xbox One bundles, expecting to get both game and console this November?
UPDATE (4:24pm): Amazon says they're honoring PS4 bundle pre-orders, minus the game. Original post follows:
Earlier this year, Ubisoft partnered up with Sony to offer a next-gen bundle that would include both the next PlayStation and Ubisoft's open-world game. GameStop offered their own bundle that included Watch Dogs and the Xbox One. People who pre-ordered one of the two bundles expected to get both game and console this November.
But now Watch Dogs isn't coming out this November—it's coming out next spring. Which leads to the question: what happens to people who pre-ordered a Watch Dogs bundle?
I reached out to Ubisoft to ask what's going on. Their response was... vague:
Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo understand the importance of releasing games of the very highest quality for their consoles. Our partnership with Sony remains strong and we will have more details to share about the specific benefits of this partnership for PlayStation customers at a later date.
Um, what? I wrote back: "This is a little disconcerting. Tons of our readers pre-ordered the next-gen Watch Dogs bundles - you guys really don't have an answer for what will happen to their pre-orders? Should they just cancel?
Ubisoft's second response:
We hope that players who have pre-ordered the game will still look forward to playing it in Spring 2014, and that the extra polish and quality we’ll be able to add to the game will ensure a fantastic gaming experience.
The big question here is whether people are still guaranteed their next-gen consoles this fall. Will they have to wait until next year? Will they get some sort of make-up voucher?
We've reached out to Microsoft and Sony as well, and we'll keep you updated as we hear more.