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Ubisoft Q1 FY2011-12: Sales down 36%, Assassin's Creed 3DS canceled, more

P

Pooya

Member
http://www.ubisoftgroup.com/gallery_files/site/270/1042/2504.pdf

  • First-quarter sales: €103 million
  • Targets for full-year 2011-12 confirmed
Paris, July 20, 2011 – Today, Ubisoft released its sales figures for the fiscal quarter ending June 30, 2011.
Sales
Sales for the first quarter of 2011-12 came to €103 million, down 36.3% (or 33.6% at constant exchange rates) compared to the €161 million recorded for the same period of 2010-11.
First-quarter 2011-12 sales were, however, higher than the guidance of approximately €90 million issued when Ubisoft released its full-year results for 2010-11. The quarter saw the following:
  • A solid performance from back-catalog titles, with sales up 84.0% to €68 million, thanks in particular to Assassin’s Creed® Brotherhood and the dance titles.
  • The launches of Child of EdenTM and Michael Jackson The Experience on Kinect, compared with the releases of Splinter Cell Conviction® and Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands® in the first quarter of 2010-11.
  • A 45.0% increase in online sales, to €12.5 million. XBLA titles OutlandTM and Might & Magic Clash of Heroes® performed well, with quality review ratings close to 85%.
Click to expand...

Shipments mentioned during conference call:
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood 7.5m (quantity lower than ACII but with better selling price than ACII, result in higher revenue.)
Michael Jackson 4m

Other notes from the conference call:
  • AC 3DS is cancelled as was said by the lead writer, decision was made back in Sep 2010. Titles like Imagine and Petz are coming.
  • ACR preorders are higher than ACB in the same period last year.
  • They expect Wii to be strong over the holidays, specially in casual section.
  • Short movies are coming before release of GR and AC.
  • He was also asked about expectation for Driver that it's low (€99 million for the quarter), he said they expect it to sell well over time, they didn't give any numbers.


Conference Call webcast
http://www.media-server.com/m/p/bw2f79zh

releasew7s6.jpg

salesr78m.jpg
 
D

Dedication Through Light

Member
Seems theyve been consistently stating that about the better profit from ACB even though its sold less, still need to open my copy though.

AC3DS was canceled just three months after it was listed revealed that E3, thats fast.
 
S

szaromir

Banned
They have busy release schedule this quarter. Interestingly 360>Wii>PS3 even without exclusive Splinter Cell. Nice performance from downloadables.
miladesn said:
[*]Short movies are coming before release of GR and AC.
Click to expand...
Can't wait for the AC ones!
 
F

Father_Brain

Banned
Well, at least we can put to rest any nonsense about AC 3DS' cancellation having anything to do with the last few months of sales figures.
 
S

szaromir

Banned
Dedication Through Light said:
Seems theyve been consistently stating that about the better profit from ACB even though its sold less, still need to open my copy though.
Click to expand...
Profitability is much higher since it took half the time to develop.,
 
E

erpg

GAF parliamentarian
Glad they decided to scrap the 3DS version of Assassin's Creed and work on Revelations instead.
 
J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
szaromir said:
Profitability is much higher since it took half the time to develop.,
Click to expand...

This assumes the game had a one-year development period. Ubi Montreal are a massive studio with more than enough manpower to have begun development on the game as core elements of ACII ended, or even develop the two games concurrently.
 
N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
A 45.0% increase in online sales, to €12.5 million. XBLA titles OutlandTM and Might & Magic Clash of Heroes® performed well, with quality review ratings close to 85%.
Click to expand...
Make more games like this.
 
B

bigtroyjon

Member
Should probably have bolded this part:
sales were, however, higher than the guidance of approximately €90 million issued when Ubisoft released its full-year results for 2010-11.
Click to expand...

Sales are 15% higher than they predicted three months ago, seems like it ended up being a much better than expected quarter.

Edit- that stock drop a few days ago is looking really weird right now, not only did the quarter come in decent but they also confirmed their yearly outlook.
 
T

Tallshortman

Member
This month would be perfect for a Ghost recon FS release. Too bad they keep delaying the shit out of it for the kinect it seems. Their crowded field argument is dumb since this month is lacking any real AAA games.
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
So the 3DS game being cancelled in September 2010 implies that why-ever the decision was made, it wasn't made due to the 3DS's performance, but rather something external.

1) Vita?
2) Fear of the handheld market?
3) Nintendo failing to follow through behind the scenes?

What would have changed between June 2010 and September 2010?
 
J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
knitoe said:
If Ubisoft wassmart, they would had named ACR as AC3 instead.
Click to expand...

Most likely they're saving AC3 for the next big time period jump. And AC:R being AC:R is hardly a silly move considering the success of AC:B.
 
R

Rad-

Member
If I was a small publisher, I would just focus on XBLA/PSN/Steam games. That's where the easy money seems to be. Almost risk free and nice steady growth.
 
M

Mr_Brit

Banned
Stumpokapow said:
So the 3DS game being cancelled in September 2010 implies that why-ever the decision was made, it wasn't made due to the 3DS's performance, but rather something external.

1) Vita?
2) Fear of the handheld market?
3) Nintendo failing to follow through behind the scenes?

What would have changed between June 2010 and September 2010?
Click to expand...
The only thing I can think of is that the 3DS specs were changed from Tegra to Pica which meant no programmable shaders so it'd be difficult to share effort between other platforms and 3DS which might have meant it'd take too much effort to be worth it.
 
C

CrunchinJelly

formerly cjelly
Stumpokapow said:
So the 3DS game being cancelled in September 2010 implies that why-ever the decision was made, it wasn't made due to the 3DS's performance, but rather something external.

1) Vita?
2) Fear of the handheld market?
3) Nintendo failing to follow through behind the scenes?

What would have changed between June 2010 and September 2010?
Click to expand...
My guess is the 3DS isn't as powerful as they'd hope so they would have had to build an AC game from the ground-up for the 3DS.

Edit: LOL, Mr Brit with exact same thoughts. :)
 
P

Pooya

Member
- they asked Ubisoft CEO about WiiU reception at e3 during QA but my stream cut out there for a bit and missed whatever he said :\ it's not archived for playback yet.

- He was also asked about expectation for Driver that it's low (€99 million for the quarter), he said they expect it to sell well over time, they didn't give any numbers.
 
Auto_aim1

Auto_aim1

MeisaMcCaffrey
knitoe said:
If Ubisoft wassmart, they would had named ACR as AC3 instead.
Click to expand...

That would be a bad move, since Revelation features the same setting, and is supposed to end Ezio's 'story', so the impact will be less. They have mentioned that the preorders for Revelations are high compared to Brotherhood at the same stage.
 
S

szaromir

Banned
JaseC said:
This assumes the game had a one-year development period. Ubi Montreal are a massive studio with more than enough manpower to have begun development on the game as core elements of ACII ended, or even develop the two games concurrently.
Click to expand...
Apparently the online component was worked on before AC2 was released, otherwise it was done by the AC2 team on much tighter schedule. I think it's clear Brohood iterated on AC2, also some new gameplay systems were influenced by Batman AA which was released only 3 months before AC2.
 
N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Mr_Brit said:
Isn't 12.5 million Euros from all digital sales really low? Wouldn't like 500K copies of a retail title generate as much profit?
Click to expand...
True, but it's much better than selling 500,000-1.5 million copies of a high budget retail game that's in development for four to six years, which unfortunately seems like a likely situation for several Ubisoft games.

It's about relative bars.

Edit:

Here's our first example:

miladesn said:
- He was also asked about expectation for Driver that it's low (€99 million for the quarter), he said they expect it to sell well over time, they didn't give any numbers.
Click to expand...
I believe that one started development in 2006.
 
K

knitoe

Member
Meisadragon said:
That would be a bad move, since Revelation features the same setting, and is supposed to end Ezio's 'story', so the impact will be less. They have mentioned that the preorders for Revelations are high compared to Brotherhood at the same stage.
Click to expand...
If they want to sale more, would be a better move.
 
J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
szaromir said:
Apparently the online component was worked on before AC2 was released, otherwise it was done by the AC2 team on much tighter schedule. I think it's clear Brohood iterated on AC2, also some new gameplay systems were influenced by Batman AA which was released only 3 months before AC2.
Click to expand...

Absolutely, but that doesn't negate my point.

Concept17 said:
The worst part is there was so much potential there, and they seem to have all but forgotten about it.
Click to expand...

Isn't there a new one being developed? I recall some screenshots leaking recently.

Edit: Maybe I'm infusing this thread with the screenshots of another game.
 
V

Vinci

Danish
Just give me From Dust and Trackmania. The rest of that is meaningless to me.

EDIT: Hadn't noticed Trackmania on the list. Damn. Nice.
 
S

szaromir

Banned
JaseC said:
Absolutely, but that doesn't negate my point.
Click to expand...
In any case Yves Guillemot himself stated during the previous financial report that ACB is more profitable exactly thanks to the shorter development schedule :p
Had no idea Clash of Heroes was coming to PC.
Click to expand...
I'll buy for the third time lol.
 
J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
szaromir said:
In any case Yves Guillemot himself stated during the previous financial report that ACB is more profitable exactly thanks to the shorter development schedule :p
Click to expand...

Are you certain it wasn't because of the higher amount of units sold at a higher RRP a la this financial report? I just quickly Google'd and the couple of articles I found pertaining to their previous financial report mentions the game bringing in more revenue (Edit: than ACII) but there's no mention as to why that was the case.

Edit 2: "Ubisoft said in the call that Brotherhood is performing better than Assassin’s Creed II in terms of revenue, but has shipped less units than the previous game." Presumably, this would be referring to the game performing better within the same time window afforded to ACII, in which case the logical extrapolation would be that the game is bringing in more revenue because it cost less to make, as you said. :)
 
P

Pooya

Member
I updated more stuff from my notes:

WiiU:
they are positive about it due to Wii's success and appeal of nintendo.

AC3DS cancellation reason:
there were a number of hardcore games coming to 3DS and they thought it was enough for launch, ....yeah whatever that means.

that's about it I think.
 
B

BurntPork

Banned
Mr_Brit said:
The only thing I can think of is that the 3DS specs were changed from Tegra to Pica which meant no programmable shaders so it'd be difficult to share effort between other platforms and 3DS which might have meant it'd take too much effort to be worth it.
Click to expand...
Well, of course that's what you would think of. lol Meanwhile, there are DS and PSP versions.
 
S

szaromir

Banned
JaseC said:
Are you certain it wasn't because of the higher amount of units sold at a higher RRP a la this financial report? I just quickly Google'd and the couple of articles I found pertaining to their previous financial report mentions the game bringing in more revenue (Edit: than ACII) but there's no mention as to why that was the case.
Click to expand...
I think he said it in the conference Q&A which was available in the audio form but isn't anymore (was replaced with today's session: http://www.media-server.com/m/p/bw2f79zh )
 
S

szaromir

Banned
JaseC said:
Yeah, most likely it's the same comment which I edited into my previous post.
Click to expand...
No no, I actually listened to that Q&A and he mentioned then: a)average higher price b)lower sell-in (7.2M vs 8M) but comparable sell-through to AC2 c)higher profitability thanks to shorter dev cycle. Perhaps my memory serves me wrong. I think miladesn also listened to that session, maybe he can comment on that.

I don't want to suggest Ubi half-assed Brohood, it was a tremendous improvement over AC2 and one of my favorite games ever.
 
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