RUSE, Conviction delayed and older franchise reboots announced

Ubisoft updates its 2009-10 targets; new games in Driver, Ghost Recon and Assassin's Creed franchises revealed

Posted on Jan 13, 2010 - 2:22pm EST

Today, Ubisoft updated its 2009-10 targets, and the number were much lower than originally forcasted. These downward revisions were given the following factors:

Further market concentration towards AAA high-quality games. Ubisoft has demonstrated its ability to react to this trend through the success of Assassin’s Creed 2, which has achieved sell-through sales topping 6 million. However, not all of the Company’s games have reaped the full benefits, with James Cameron’s Avatar: The game and several non-casual Wii titles reporting lower-than-expected sales.
The postponed release dates for Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction and R.U.S.E, which were previously scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2009-10, and will now be released in 2010-11. Splinter Cell Conviction is now expected to hit the stores in April 2010.

In addition, Ubisoft now expects to end the year with a current operating loss before stock-based compensation of around €50 million, rather than the previously announced target of current operating income amounting to at least €70 million.

Yves Guillemot, Chief Executive Officer, stated: "Despite a number of highly successful titles, such as Assassin’s Creed 2 – which is expected to reach 9 million sell-in units by the end of March 2010 – and Just Dance – our great Wii success during the holiday season – Ubisoft has not met its financial targets. Ubisoft has already demonstrated its capacity for success in the high-end games market thanks to Assassin’s Creed 2, with sales 40% higher than for the first title. The 2010-11 line-up – which is stronger in franchises for Xbox 360 and PS3 – reflects our refocusing efforts and should enable us to both win market share and enhance our profitability.”

Initial information on the 2010-11 line-up

The 2010-11 fiscal year will see a greater number of franchise releases than in 2009-10, including Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction, a new game in the Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon series, Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands, Driver, Raving Rabbids 4 and a new episode of Assassin’s Creed, which will be the first in the series to have an online multiplayer mode. The 2010-11 line-up will be more focused on the Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3, the consoles which are expected to experience sustained sales growth in games for gamers in calendar 2010. Other new franchises and innovations will also be announced throughout the year.