It was a lucrative year for French video game publisher and developer Ubisoft. The company saw a profitable sales growth of 36 percent, amounting to around €928 million (US$ 1.46 billion). It owed its success to the successful releases during the previous year coming from established franchises, original IP releases, and even its casual line of games. For more details, check out our full article.

Ubisoft struck gold with their acquisition of the Tom Clancy name for life. How much did it cost them, and how big a gold mine will it bring them? Talks are also in the air about their venture into the world of MMOs with the said name. To find out more, read up over at the full article.

Ubisoft has just completed tallying the results of their holiday quarter performance and the results have been no less than fantastic. Most of their franchises have proven to be hits, including next-gen newcomer Assassin's Creed (PC, PS3, Xbox 360). The French-based company now says they've moved up as the third-leading independent publishers in the business. Details in the full article.

Ubisoft president Yves Guillemot praises Nintendo for helping Ubisoft expand its business, and states that they will have more Nintendo-quality games for the Wii. That's going to be something worth waiting for, especially if that translates to having the rumored Assassin's Creed Wii title.

More details in the full article!

Paris-based publisher Ubisoft Entertainment has just made known its first half financial performance for fiscal year 2007, and the company reports some EUR 261 million (US$ 355.31 million) in sales. That's a 51.8% hike up in sales from last year's EUR 172 million (US$ 234.15 million), and a good lap ahead of Ubisoft's first half targets. The French publishing company also reported that 75% of its income now comes from console games sales.

Ubisoft Entertainment CEO Yves Guillemot said:

Ubisoft has turned in a very solid first-half showing and has continued to win market share on new-generation consoles. [...] The strong sales performance and our positioning on high gross margin consoles has lead to a sharp profitability improvement for the first half of 2007-08.

 
With Assassin's Creed (Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, PC), Haze (Sony PS3, Xbox 360, PC) and, Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 (Nintendo Wii, DS), and Naruto: Rise of a Ninja in its lineup of games to be released, Ubisoft eyes a continuance of income at the later half of fiscal year 2007 and raised its optimistic estimates by a modest 6% (year-on-year) to € 330 million (US$ 449.24 million). The company expressed its full year projection to reach at an estimate of € 825 million (US$ 1.12 billion) by the fiscal year's end.

In other finer points, Ubisoft has announced that four titles were delayed to FY 2008-2009. Tom Clancy's End War (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) will still make it by this fiscal year, including the four titles mentioned earlier.

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot delivered a keynote speech earlier today at the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival (EIEF) 2007. During the keynote, Guillemot gave a sort of preview for his company's next video game title as he discussed the importance of user-created content.

According to the CEO, Ubisoft is currently working on a new title that will provide gamers with a powerful and easy to understand tool set. Furthermore, gamers will be able to come up with their own adventures using the said tool set.

Other users will then be able to "preview" the work and comment on it - ultimately making it better. Guillemot further explained, "The goal is really to make sure our consumers become creators. We need to put gamers in the spotlight and recognize their creativity and make sure that our consumers are the stars".

No concrete details were given but those who heard the speech couldn't help but think of the PlayStation 3's LittleBigPlanet.

A joint celebration of everything entertainment and artistic, the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival (EIEF) coming on August 13-14 will highlight the games industry through the eyes of the entertainment industry as a whole. To be held at the Royal College of Physicians at Edinburgh, the fifth EIEF will reflect upon what has been the game industry's significant rise of popularity today.

Pooling personalities in the world of entertainment, what the industry gamers call "home" will be examined by parallel creative industries which include music, art, and movies. Keynoted by Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, the conference will also feature reflections from Simon Nelson of the BBC, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE), Linden Labs' Jim Pubrick, and actor Steven Berkhoff on games as culture.

Together with Dare to be Digital game creativity competitions and Future Publishing's EDGE Awards, the event will also conclude with a Digital Interactive Symposium on August 15 at Edinburgh University. Chris Deering, chairman of the Edinburgh Interactive Festival, concluded the announcement, saying, "This year we have much to be excited about. The festival is now firmly established as one of the most important events in the interactive entertainment industry's calendar."

According to an official announcement made by France-based Ubisoft, the video game publisher is planning to expand its employee base for its studio in Casablanca, Morocco. Spurred by a local government incentive program for high quality jobs in technology, the studio established back in 1998 will open up 150 seats for interested applicants.

 

The Moroccan studio has been active in delivering titles under Ubisoft's umbrella, featuring a portfolio of games such as Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie and Prince of Persia The Two Thrones. They were also responsible for bringing Rayman Raving Rabbids to the DS, together with Star Wars: Lethal Alliance.

And although mostly lacking in the manpower as opposed to Ubisoft's Montreal studios, the 50-man team is currently at work on Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 for the Nintendo DS. And while the studio is the only game developer studio in Morocco or in Northern Africa, the team is mostly staffed by local people - artists and engineers from the local populace.

Managing director of Ubisoft's Casablanca studio, Cyril Vermeil, stated that many of the young people in Morocco are passionate about games: "Our task will be to recruit people who want to grow with Ubisoft to become leading specialists in an industry offering an increasing number of career opportunities for local talent."

Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft, said that the studio was established because Ubisoft knew local education system would provide talented people for game development. He concluded the announcement saying:

It is an honor to work with the Moroccan government to significantly expand our presence in the region. Both the video game industry and the Moroccan economy are strong and growing, and we look forward to pioneering the industry in this exciting region.

Ubisoft, best known for its action-packed last and current-gen games, is still considering getting a merger with mammoth publisher Electronic Arts which owns 20 percent of the company's shares.

According to the French publisher's CEO Yves Guillemot, a merger is just one of the options to make Ubisoft flourish. The other one is to go about their business in the same manner as they always have or better yet, get into the movie industry.

In particular, the long-running Prince of Persia franchise just may get the silver screen treatment. Details aren't all that clear as of now, but plenty more tidbits are on the way.

In a Gamasutra interview, Guillemot explained the three paths they can take. "The first option for us is to manage our own company and grow it. The second option is to work with the movie industry, and the third is to merge. We think the market is going to grow fast, and we can take a big share of that market, so we don’t have to change the way things are done at the moment."

Armed with the confidence that comes with releasing their new "Games for Everyone" strategy, Ubisoft's Yves Guillemot is now ready to take on the competition. Everything looks rosy for the makers of Splinter Cell as their fiscal 2006-2007 earnings showed an increase of 24 percent in sales.

They also have good ammo to use in their quest to conquer the consoles: Assassin's Creed, Tom Clancy's End Wars and Haze. Of course, they can still rely on the success of their hit franchises: Splinter Cell, Rayman, and Brothers-in-Arms. Add those up to a steady supply of casual games for the quirky Nintendo and DS consoles and you've got success written all other it. Ubisoft's new stance to make games dedicated for a specific audience in mind is definitely showing up in their video games.

Guillemot said, “We are at the beginning of a new market – there are new customers coming into our market now and they just don’t care about franchises our industry used to make. They want games that are relevant to them.”

He also expressed that the company can face off against established companies like EA and THQ when it comes to licensed games. Currently, Ubisoft has acquired big name licenses, such as game adaptations of Beowulf, Surf's Up, Naruto and Lost.