Ubisoft Q1 sales dive 51%

i agree with BarkLikeADog it is really stuipid to waste important reasources on makeing crappy games that you are tring to sucker 5 yearolds into buying

"During the quarter, Ubisoft expects to launch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Academy of Champions, and a range of casual titles for Nintendo's platforms." Jesus ubisoft. And you wonder why your sales are down? Quit funding crappy games. None of those will sell and quit making games for the DS. Its a total fail system unless you're making another nintendogs.

I think the lineup of games mentioned in the article is more to blame than the rough economy that ubisoft cited. Stop blaming others for your apparent reluctance to release quality software.

I love Ubisoft but they need to quit it with the shovelware they are spitting out for the DS and Wii, they are just enabling Nintendo :)

THANK GOD i'd have died if assassins creed 2 woulda been delayed. out of the 6 games i've already bought that's coming out and i've prepaid for 4 have been delayed due to "so called" losses in revenue(inwhich every company should have EXPECTED(losses) due to the global economy) there's no excuse to delay games like this. Sounds like to me that companies need better insight and oversight for their yearly calculations according to what's going on "real time" in the world instead of always projecting positive numbers why don't they also project negative numbers and already prepare for the loss instead of LET THE WHOLE FANBASE feel the pain aswell... because it does hurt...because somehow, I just feel assassins creed 2 just STILLLLLLLLLLLLLLL might be delayed.... and my damn bday is nov 15th...lol. oh ima be so heartbroken if it's delayed :/ can't wait for trophies though for assassins creed 2! also wish they'd patch assassins creed 1 trophies :)

Well if Assassin's Creed 1 still worth mentioning even now then Ubisoft did have a gapping hole in its lineup schedule. Far Cry 2 was not too shabby IMHO saving the SecuROM part, except both games are very repetitive after once over, and why AC1 has no online component to it?

Daaa! Where's the new Rainbow 6 with four player co-op? Lost along with their revenue stream. I'm a huge Ubi fanboy, but I haven't seen anything remotely interesting from them this year. With Splinter Cell postponed, I guess I won't be sending any "bail-out" money their way until 2010.

their sales dropped because they haven't released any good games recently...once they give us AC2,SCC and the rest their sales will go through the roof...unless they do something terrible and mess up those games(which i hope they won't)

With Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and Avatar its no wonder why ubisoft is declining 54% SCC and I Am Alive will be amazing though

Well if they didnt hold onto games for as long as possible then they may see some profits.

This seems more dramatic and negative than it really is, IMO. With the economy the way it is for most of the world, a quarter or two of losses in a row makes the front page with a subtitle "Next Stop: Bankruptcy?" when it wasn't all that uncommon before the economic woes we've seen in the past few years. However, when you look at it from the industry perspective, you realize that major developers like Ubisoft don't exist because of casual gaming. Ubisoft exists because of the great quality of work they put into their AAA titles, and they are almost always slated for a strategic holiday season release. Ubisoft is in an off season, and I would guess (without having done the research) that they have produced less casual gaming Q1 this year than Q1 last year to save money, which resulted in lower profits. The numbers that will really matter is what kind of profits came in from Assassin's Creed 2, Avatar, Conviction, etc. When your big games don't sell well, that's when a development company should start thinking about making some tough decisions.

Apparently, they expected online content to be higher, but are expecting their releases to meet previous expectations. They're delaying games. Hopefully they are not rushing the others or they'll end up with more disappointing quarterly reports. That and millions of disappointed AC fans. My fingers are crossed. Please don't rush AC2 out before it is ready.

Assassins Creed 2 is no doubt gonna be huge for Ubisoft. The 1st game sold over 8 million copies, so let's say about 10 million for the 2nd game? The game's comin' out in November, so probably about 3-4 million sale before the end of the year.

A lot of delays Ubisoft, I think we only have AC left now, Avatar might b good but we haven't seen it until now......

Does nobody see what's going on here? This rush to $10-20 casual gaming is never going to bring in the money compared with $60 AAA titles! Because Ubisoft has moved away from hardcore gaming on the 360, PS3 and PC (hence lower income for those machines) and moved to casual gaming, it needs to sell 3-6 times more units to bring in the same money. It patently isn't doing that. On this site we have had multiple articles from so-called experts saying it doesn't matter, for example, that retail and AAA PC title sales are falling, as the income will be taken up by flash games and casual games. But these games, in many cases, are sub $10 games, which means you need to sell an awful lot more of them (maybe 10 times more!) An article recently said that casual game downloading will be worth a billion dollars by next year, and that may be correct, but I think it will replace three billion in lost sales of hardcore games that are coming out in much fewer numbers, and consequently selling less units.

come on ubi you need to beat ea

I think that Ubisoft is just experiencing a drought before the flood. Now that their AAA titles such as Assasin's Creed II, Splinter Cell : Conviction, Avatar, and Red Steel 2 are all going to be released in the same quarter Ubisoft will see a huge profit in a short space of time.

Yet they will release more shovelware, people are obviously sick of them.

Ubisoft are medicore developers.They only make good trailers not the game. I am worried about Splinter Cell Conviction

why worry, Assassin's Creed 2, Splinter Cell Conviction will be a huge hit

Seems like another red flag about the world economy. It is little wonder so few are hiring when very strong companies are experiencing such dramatic dips.

regardless of the economy, these numbers are awful. income is down by 33%? off on your projection by -6.6%...ouch

The gaming division as a whole is suffering during the summer, it's somewhat expected, but it really sucks when it happens to my favorite publisher/developer.

I saw this and all I thought was 'Oh sh*t, they are going to delay AC2.' but luckily my nightmare didn't come true XD

They should do better next year with the following titles..Splinter Cell Conviction, Red Steel 2, Ghost Recon, and I Am Alive. I can't see Ubi struggling too much. Assassin's Creed 2 will help this year. Then again, I won't be getting AC2 myself; gotta watch the pennies. Somebody mentioned earlier, 'get the more important titles released' - I have to agree with this. But...only when they are properly finished.

That's what you get for focusing on everything Tom Clancy, you Clancysoft!

I like Ubisoft, but there problem is they don't plan series out as well as they should, doing so would get them to at least have these games out consistently every other year, and it would be good too since they have a lot of interesting franchises like the entire Tom Clancy game series and series like the Raving Rabbids and Prince of Persia and now the Endwar is gonna be another series as is Assassin's Creed though, I also think they're not as much as a multiplatform publisher like they used to be, I mean they still publish games on every platform, it's just that their games aren't all big multiplatform titles, and that might have something to do with their sales slumping

Heroes 5 was pretty good, as were the expansions. Dark Messiah was alright for what it was. But what about a new Might and Magic RPG? The right developer could really craft an awesome new game for this dormant franchise. C'mon Ubisoft!

I'm super relieved that Assassin's creed 2 is still on schedule, and hopefully this decline will push ubisoft back on the straight and narrow and decrease this imagine crap. One or two imagine games are ok for a target audience but I swear when i last looked there were 15 seperate titles, that's too much crap spread too thin; there are only so many people that will buy it.

Watch that 51 go back up. This isn't news wtf. lol

@ TheKungFool: Amen, brother. If Square would stop messing around with countless FF games for DS (I mean, seriously... I think there's a lot of gas in that particular tank, but they're making pretty much the same game over and over...) and the crappy rpgs that just aren't doing anything for the audience they're aimed at, we might actually get FFXIII this year. And think of the money they'd make if they went ahead and gave us fans what we want in a remade version of FFs 7, 8, and 9... But alas, I don't work for them, I'm just pissy cause I have to wait until next year for my FF fix.

I got much love for Ubisoft, they're truly one of a kind developer. But seriously, they haven't been releasing anything lately...so maybe Assassins Creed 2 will change things somewhat and start it off to a good start.

Inconnux you remind me of my friend, a big pc gamer if i've ever seen one, and you have no clue which games are good or not that come out for consoles cuz pressing buttons on a controller is too awkward for you, you can only click away on your custom mouse.

Thats to bad, but they do have a good line of games coming

thats gonna happen when you support microsoft

How can they be doomed when they one of the most impressive line ups in the industry? come on guys

I don't believe how clueless and ignorant some people are that they are saying Ubisoft is doomed because of ONE quarter. It depress me reading comments since make me lose faith on humanity

I can't think of any Ubisoft games I considered buying in the last quarter. Release games that gamers want to play and they will see an increase in sales.

@thekungfu- cheers as well :) Yea true S-E has released a lot of garbage recently. But it is a company that holds franchises like FF and DQ that are quite exceptional. Like you say hopefully FF13 can end their bad streak. Yea maybe I'm being a little rough on AC2 but from the previews i'm a little worried. What we've seen concerning SC Conviction looked more promising to me, and I'm not even a huge SC fan.

@ Anthony414 - Cheers :) AC2 might not be #1 priority to you and I, but it will be a huge game for many people. Point is, it would benefit Ubisoft financially to stop wasting time on smaller releases and shovelware and get the big titles out. Same goes for SQUARE-ENIX, who constantly wastes time with smaller titles, remakes, and cheap spin-off titles, when they could use their time and resources to get something like Final Fantasy XIII here sooner.

man they were a rival for EA if they fall someone else must fight with EA

Ubisoft is a decent developer. Assassins Creed was a great game but it was too repetitive. The sequel should fix the first one's mistakes. Conviction looks promising so I think they will get good sales this fall.

@thekungfool I agree with your post except that assassin's creed wasnt a good game and I'm not looking forward to assassin's creed 2.

In my opinion Ubisoft is making the same mistake many developers are; they're throwing out handfulls of mediocre titles instead of focussing thier efforts on A+ quality titles that will win over fans and produce a true sales driver. Its simple, stop wasting time and money developing forgettable Wii and Ds prots and shovelware, and get us Assassin's Creed 2 sooner. Then we'll actually be buying your games.

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good I hate ubisoft

well im not surprised. the last ubi games hace sucked. bring R6V n GR back

May want to make Splinter Cell Multi Platform now guys. I probably won't buy it cause I don't really get into that series but a port to more consoles would have to help.

Well thats justice for some of the lousy ports they've released recently. The treatment of titles like SC: Double Agent was embarrassing. And from what I've heard most of the people who bought Far Cry 2 want their money back more than if it was owed to them by Bernard Madoff!!

Lets also not for get about this "In the February 2008 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, Editor-in-Chief Dan ?Shoe? Hsu asserted that Ubisoft had ceased to provide all Ubisoft titles to the EGM for any coverage purposes as a result of prior critical previews and negative reviews" They think they are better than they are. You make a crap game you get a crap review...EGM was and will be great. I liked the one reviewers comment (Crispen) and how it went something like this " Ubisoft better not give me more of this repetitive Bull$**t in Assassin's Creed 2"