Ubisoft would have canceled three unannounced games and would have once again postponed the pirate adventure Skull and Bonesaccording to according to Stephen Totilo at Axios Gaming.
As also reported by VGC, the company stated that it “faces major challenges as the industry continues to move towards mega-brands and long-form titles that can reach gamers around the world, across platforms and business models”.
Ubisoft said it has spent the past four years trying to fit its major brands (Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six and The Division) into these converging trends.
“However, games from this investment stage have yet to be released, while our recent launches have not performed as expected.”
The imputed titles of this are Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope e Just Dance 2023with the company saying that its software sales this holiday season were “significantly and surprisingly slower than expected,” with these two titles among those that fell short of expectations.
Skull and Boneswhich after a series of previous delays was expected to be released in March 2023, should now arrive in the “early” part of the company’s next fiscal year (2023-24), which is from April to March 2024.
During the 2023-24 fiscal year, Ubisoft said it also plans to release Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, “and other yet-to-be-announced premium games, including a big one, as well as promising free-to-play titles for some of our most important brands”.
The CEO of Ubisoft Yves Guillemot he has declared:
“We are clearly disappointed with our recent performance. We are facing contrasting market dynamics as the industry continues to shift towards mega-brands and perennial live games amid worsening economic conditions impacting consumer spending.
and keeps going:
“Despite strong ratings and player reception, as well as an ambitious marketing plan, we were surprised by Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope’s poor performance in the last few weeks of 2022 and into early January. Just Dance 2023 also underperformed.
“Therefore, with the approval of the Board of Directors, we are making other important strategic and operational decisions today. It is imperative that we continue to adapt our organisation, further strengthen our execution and ensure that players experience great games and great value creation.”
ends with:
“The long-term outlook for the industry remains promising and I am convinced Ubisoft is well positioned to benefit from this momentum thanks to the strength of our teams, our brands, our production capacity, our technology and our balance sheet. Our catalog remains very healthy, with particularly robust activity on Rainbow Six Siege, great momentum for our Assassin’s Creed games, and generally solid performance from our live games.
“We expect our strategy of building long-lived live games and transforming our core brands into truly global phenomena with multiple offerings across platforms and business models will ultimately generate significant value creation, with strong revenue growth. topline and operating income in the coming years.”
