Ubisoft opens second China shop

By Tor Thorsen, GameSpotPosted Sep 17, 2007 1:49 pm PT

French publisher builds on success of Shanghai studio by opening new, online-focused office in the provincial capital Chengdu.

Though Ubisoft's headquarters is located in Paris, one of its most successful internal studios is halfway across the world in China. Opened in 1996, Ubisoft Shanghai has been behind several critically acclaimed Tom Clancy titles, including Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, Splinter Cell: Double Agent, and the PS3 version of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2. The studio is also readying the real-time strategy title Tom Clancy's EndWar for release on the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 next spring.

Ubisoft Shanghai's success has prompted Ubisoft to start up another China shop. Located in the eponymous capital of Sichuan province in the country's southwest, Ubisoft Chengdu opened its doors today under managing director Richard Tsao, former senior producer at Ubi Shanghai. Tsao and Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot were on hand at the studio's opening ceremony, along with several senior officials of the Chinese Communist Party.

At first, Ubisoft Chengdu will focus on the oxymoronic task of "internal outsourcing." Eventually, though, it will develop online titles for consoles, handhelds, and the PC.

45 Comments

  • masterchief1994

    Posted Sep 22, 2007 1:56 am PT

    cool

  • playstation_wii

    Posted Sep 20, 2007 3:50 pm PT

    yeah, the asian market is huge

  • DavidCK

    Posted Sep 18, 2007 10:10 pm PT

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0kWDZfJkuU (Beijing)
    Anyway, China is growing exponentially, and still many of you believe that the country is a threat to the world... Believe me, people there live in peace and chinese people always want to live in peace. Compared to the US, you pretty much have no right to question the motives of the country...

  • DavidCK

    Posted Sep 18, 2007 10:02 pm PT

    To re-emphasize some points people has made, China is not a sweat shop based and third world country that pro-US based protectionist media such CNN lead you to believe...Watch this people, open your eyes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KskDG1NeF68 (shanghai)
    By the way, did you all know that the communist party helped millions of people came out of poverty in the recent years? Did the american media publish that? The answer is no and they are trying to destroy China's economy and its people by bringing bs such as the recalls (a extremely small percentage of goods affected blown out of proportion)

  • DavidCK

    Posted Sep 18, 2007 9:40 pm PT

    @Sergsky: China is oppressive and a regime and tortures its civilians? Damn it, have you even been to the country? Go there in person for a year, come back and tell me if what the american media tells you is true. We chinese people have 5000 years of history and we live just like anywhere else. You've been way over-brainwash by CNN, tibet activists and of course falun gong practitioners...

  • McHenry2

    Posted Sep 18, 2007 9:18 pm PT

    GIF, your comment displays much judgment based on a few key facts, other matters play out too, know more about what your saying, because wars these days don't throw numbers at each other

  • LasTSuPremacY

    Posted Sep 18, 2007 9:15 pm PT

    shanghai don't let you chew gum because the ground will be filled with black dots so shanghai is a very clean place with weird rules. In china there are around 1billion they have LOW currency BECAUSE THE DAMN PLACE IS OVERPOPULATED.....if china's currency is equal to U.S's think of the money one company will make 1 game will make around 250mil or so and if they put out around 1000 games/consoles different kinds of games/consoles they will have around 50 billion dollars or so in a matter of years and plus the consoles like PS3 that is very expensive..............THAT COMPANY CAN BUY THE U.S. in just a matter of time but of course we wont sell U.S but the money is alot and i'm only estimating when a quarter of china buys 1 game 1 time.......so ya if china is same as American currency than china's economy will PWNZOR THE WORLD!!!!!!! Europe is a small continent and they are very little populated so European currency a.k.a euros is worth more than American money so you get my point.

  • GIF

    Posted Sep 18, 2007 3:56 pm PT

    China is a superpower, possibly the next big superpower being that the U.S. gets most of its goods made from there. Plus its population is way larger than ours so if you are talking about winning wars by throwing numbers at one another, China is going to win. I don't like it any more than anyone else but its a fact.

  • Sigil-otaku

    Posted Sep 18, 2007 2:26 pm PT

    @ Sergsky: No need to pretend the chinese are the only country in the world that is evil. America is often looked at as a noble state yet they only invaded iraq to steal oil and now that the country is being torn apart no one is coming to their aid they all just seek to slowly get out. Plus what does it say about us when it's our companies that are condoning these actions by creating chinese factories like this?

  • DJ_Quack_Quack

    Posted Sep 18, 2007 2:18 pm PT

    uhh sergsky... Why didn't you consider the obvious fact that it cost less money to develop things in china than other places in the world. Think of the currency difference. (1 dollar US = 7 dollars China)

  • Sergsky

    Posted Sep 18, 2007 1:48 pm PT

    I am surprised that Western companies invest so much in China even though their regime is oppresive, it tortures civilians, it has concentration camps and it invades other countries. Why didn't they invest in Irak instead of declaring war? Oh wait! I know! China has nukes and Tibet doesn't have oil.

  • beckit_beck

    Posted Sep 18, 2007 12:57 pm PT

    ubi ftw?

  • HYP3RD4SH_666

    Posted Sep 18, 2007 11:29 am PT

    In the year 2332, two super powered game development companies do battle. Bungie International defends against the evil forces of Ubisoft.

  • beckoflight

    Posted Sep 18, 2007 4:40 am PT

    GO UBI GO don;t stop !

  • calumma

    Posted Sep 18, 2007 2:41 am PT

    CrimsonSword88:

    I agree that angel investors tend to favor high tech companies as you implied, but making $9 million out of $1 million initial outlay seems too rosy of a return. It's not easy to set up companies abroad, especially in China where the legal (ex. their idea of patent, IP, or lack thereof) and business systems are drastically different from ours, and Ubisoft learned to adapt to the local environment and exploited an opportunity as their overall global strategy (cost reduction pointed out by Canitbe, differentiation pointed out by many other posters, or maybe just plain old economies of scale). You also got the idea of offshoring wrong. Offshoring takes away American jobs, not retaining it. I can understand why you'd call China a "third world country" because to some not-so-well-read individuals like you, that's what it may seem like. To me, China is the next big giant, it doesn't matter where Ubisoft bases its next studio, Chengdu, Nanjing, Jinan, shenyang, whatever, Assasins Creed is still gonna be a great game and I can never be sure how "sophisticated" you numskull really are.

  • darkscorcher

    Posted Sep 17, 2007 10:20 pm PT

    why are they opening so many seperate buildings ?? dont they already have 5 ? why don't they make 1 large building somewhere, and just fly everyone in, like google ,or MicroSoft.,

  • 7eight9

    Posted Sep 17, 2007 10:19 pm PT

    hey CrimsonSword88:
    China isn't a third world country. I just felt the need to point that out.

  • azizrulez

    Posted Sep 17, 2007 9:49 pm PT

    good thing its not entirely focused on the wii like most developers are doing at the moment

  • CrimsonSword88

    Posted Sep 17, 2007 9:25 pm PT

    Hi Canitbe:
    Suppose that I'm a US investor.
    I invested $ 1 mil in China, made 10 games, and made $ 1 mil out each of the games.
    so in total I makes $ 9 mil, which goes back to US because I'm a US resident.
    Thus its far more profitable for US to invest in developing countries, we are not taking jobs from Americans, we are only exploiting people of the third world countries in a very sophisticated way.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent Quick Links

Summary | Reviews | News | Previews & Features | Images | Videos | Answers | Hints & Cheats | Forum | Check Prices

Check Prices: $12.99 – 33.3

GameStop $12.99 SHOP ›
eBay $33.3 SHOP ›
advertisement
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent Boxshot Enlarge the boxshot
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent

Game Stats

Full Game Details »Close
Also on

Games you may like…

Users who looked at content for this game also looked at these games.

See More Similar Games
advertisement