Ubisoft Responds To Red Dead Redemption 2's Delay

Red Dead Redemption 2 moving out of 2017 could be good news for Ubisoft, according to CFO Alain Martinez. Speaking during Ubisoft's latest earnings call today, the executive said Rockstar's game shifting to 2018 could help Ubisoft's own games perform better.

"Clearly the fact that there is no Red Dead Redemption [2] is a positive for our fiscal year 2018," he said. "This is something that we had taken into our [financial] assumptions. So the absence of that game is of course giving us a better window for the launch of some of our games."

As part of Ubisoft's earnings report today, the company said it expects fiscal Q2 sales to jump 34 percent, thanks in part to the launch of Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, the third DLC season for the swordfighting game For Honor, and the new Hong Kong expansion for Rainbow Six Siege. Some analysts were wondering why Ubisoft was so confident that sales would increase year-over-year, and the fact that Red Dead Redemption 2 is moving to 2018 is a part of that, it seems.

At the same time, Martinez stressed that it's "too early" to say what kind of impact Red Dead Redemption 2's delay could have on Ubisoft's own bottom line.

"Overall we think it's [too] early to have a view and change anything," he said. "... we have more confidence but we think it's too early to change our guidance."

Ubisoft isn't alone here, either. Red Dead Redemption 2 will be a juggernaut, and the fact that it is moving to a different window will in theory give other games more room to breathe. For its part, the CEO of Rockstar parent company Take-Two doesn't think Red Dead Redemption 2's release date matters; if the game is good enough, people will buy it whenever it comes out, Strauss Zelnick said earlier this year.

Other big upcoming Ubisoft games include Assassin's Creed: Origins (October 27) and South Park: The Fractured But Whole (October 17).

For more on Ubisoft's latest earnings report, check out GameSpot's breakdown of all the key details.