yourself-fitness
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Contested Ubisoft fitness game still coming out?
After the problems between ResponDesign and Ubisoft over what would have been My Fitness Coach became public, we weren't sure what would become of the actual product in question. The last word from Ubisoft (before the $26 million lawsuit was filed) was that the game was no longer part of the My Coach series and would be marketed in the US under the title of ResponDesign's original fitness program, Yourself!Fitness, and as Go Fitness in Europe.It appears that Ubisoft is going ahead with the game, and, perhaps in the interest of not promoting ResponDesign any more than they have to, the company seems to have chosen Go Fitness as the American title as well, according to a new ESRB rating. Maybe they can make enough from the game to pay ResponDesign.
Ubisoft sued by Yourself!Fitness dev for at least $26 million
ResponDesign, an Oregon-based company that published Yourself!Fitness a couple years back for various consoles, is suing Ubisoft over a game the French company was supposed to publish earlier this year. Ubisoft, which licensed assets from ResponDesign, was expected to publish My Fitness Coach to coincide with the release of Wii Fit, ResponDesign feels it has lost millions of dollars in royalties due to the game's delay. There's a lot of numbers in the suit, with many zeros behind them, but the point is that ResponDesign believes it's owed at least $26 million for breach of license agreement and continued damages from Ubisoft's inability to "diligently pursue development of the game." Ubisoft has yet to respond to the lawsuit.
Ubisoft sued over Yourself!Fitness Wii port that never happened
ResponDesign is a little ticked off. If you ever played Yourself!Fitness for the Xbox, PC or PS2, know that they had a Wii version planned to capitalize on the success of Nintendo's Wii Fit. Ubisoft was developing My Fitness Coach, with an agreement between themselves and ResponDesign to use some of Yourself!Fitness's assets, including the virtual trainer Maya, in the game. Part of the agreement was to launch in early 2008, to coincide with Wii Fit's release (and thus capitalize on its popularity). Since that didn't happen, ResponDesign is most upset it lost out on a lot of money in royalties.The lawsuit was filed on July 16 in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Los Angeles. ResponDesign also had claims Ubisoft "never disclosed that it was developing a game that would be entitled My Weight Loss Coach or any other game in the My Coach product line that would directly compete with or replace the My Fitness Coach game." The agreement was to apparently see ResponDesign receive $250,000 for the initial game elements, $50,000 when Ubisoft completed the first playable version of the Wii game (which was supposed to be completed no later than Nov. 18, 2007), and an additional $50,000 after Nintendo approved the gold master for the finished title.ResponDesign feels cheated and claims "from the outset [Ubisoft] failed to diligently pursue development of the game, ignored the terms of the license agreement and acted in bad faith."
