Capcom and Sega seem to be scaling back their Wii efforts, and now it would appear that Ubisoft is reexamining its approach to Nintendo platforms as well. The French publisher announced a downward revision to its fiscal outlook today, partially blaming the DS market and slow sales of several non-casual Wii titles. The company is now refocusing its attention on platforms that it feels will experience more growth, and those platforms it believes are the Xbox 360 and PS3. It seems that Ubisoft and other third parties are catching up with the trend that core gamers are actually driving the market.
"The fiscal year 2010-11 line-up will be more focused on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, the consoles which are expected to experience sustained sales growth in games for gamers in calendar 2010," Ubisoft noted.
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot commented, "Ubisoft has already demonstrated its capacity for success in the high-end games market thanks to Assassin’s Creed II, with sales 40 percent higher than for the first title. The 2010-11 line-up – which is stronger in franchises for Xbox360 and PS3 – reflects our refocused efforts and should enable us to both win market share and enhance our profitability.”
For the 2011 fiscal year starting in April, Ubisoft intends to ship a greater number of franchise releases than the previous year, including Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction (which was delayed into April), a new game in the Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon series, Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands, Driver, Raving Rabbids 4 and, interestingly, "a new episode of Assassin’s Creed, which will be the first in the series to have an online multiplayer mode."
