Assassin's Creed was the number selling game on PS3 in Europe, and number two on 360 in 2007. In the US it finished 2007 second on PS3, and third on 360. It sold 5 million copies, pretty impressive. Imagine - 2.5 million units.

"• In 2007 Ubisoft moves up to the position of third-leading independent publisher."

The big omission here is "Excluding Asia", which is a pretty big region to omit. Ubisoft spin.

When will AC 2 be announced, why do they bother waiting for Ubidays, we all know it is coming

I'm surprised no one else talked about this, because it seems pretty relevant to me. From the report:

* 7 franchises, including Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, Brothers in Arms, Far Cry, Prince of Persia and Anno,
* 5 new brands, including Tom Clancy's EndWar, Haze, the Shaun White snowboard game and a Tom Clancy air combat game,
* New games in the Petz, Imagine and MyCoach series as well as a new line of casual games.

We'll see if this changes (they said they were doing 7 franchises, but only list 5), but from what I see here, I see a bunch of "hardcore" games for the 360/PS3 (Splinter Cell, Fary Cry, Endwar, Haze, Tom Clancy Air Combat) and then "Petz, Imagine, Mycoach, as well as a new line of casual games."

Perhaps there is some major Wii game nestled in there, but it looks very much like the Wii and DS are getting tons of casual stuff with little or absolutely no "traditional" fare.

Just thought I'd point that out.

Remember when Ubisoft stated that they were going to be the largest third party publisher on the Wii and that they were determined to do so with Nintendo like game quality?

Did they say when any of that was actually going to happen?

 I remember that, and it's one of the reasons I brought this up.

I'm not at all saying this casual titles will be bad (I do think MyWordCoach looked pretty good), but the distinction is pretty stark. We can expect a Red Steel 2 at some point, but other than that, this appears like a textbook case of lipservice producing no real results for Nintendo.

If someone can convince me otherwise, feel free -- I'm deliberately emphasizing this point in a controversial manner.