During their E3 2012 conference yesterday Ubisoft announced that eight games would be coming to the Nintendo Wii U during its launch period, even claiming that their strong support is a sign of their interest in the innovative technology the Wii U GamePad offers.

In spite of this strong support for the Wii U, Ubisoft does have a back-up plan - port the games over to tablets and smart phones.  

GamesIndustry state that in a press-only event Ubisoft's CEO Yves Guillemot has claimed that the company will keep development costs down by being prepared to port Wii U titles over to tablets and smartphones, which also utilise touchscreen technology.  Speaking to the press Mr. Guillemot stated:

"The new content you can't port on the other machines but what you can do is to port it to mobile phones and to tablets. So it's a way to create content that you will be able to port on the generations of tablets or phones that work well - if you don't monetise it there you can monetise it on many other platforms."

He did note that Ubisoft will need to have "specific content to be monetised by the Wii U," but suggested that if the titles do not do too well on the Wii U they could come to tablets and smartphones.  This is reminiscent of many Wii titles that were originally exclusive to Nintendo's console before being ported to the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3.

While we may all be enjoying ZombiU, Rayman Legends and Sports Connection later this year on the Wii U tablet owners may get them soon after that too.

Trailer courtesy of IGN.