By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Sales - Ubisoft Reports $117M Loss On Sales Drops, Catalog Discounting

Train wreck on 30 November 2009

So lets recap.

Ubisoft losing money, HD titles seem to be doing fine (we dont know for sure) but Ubisoft went out of there way to highlight Wii instability as a factor in them losing money.

EA Montreal shifting focus away from Wii titles due to Wii unpredictability.

Maybe its me but I sense a theme brewing...



Around the Network
Yakuzaice on 30 November 2009
NJ5 said:
Yakuzaice said:

May is pretty late in the cycle.  Less than six months before the game released.  Big games to to go gold around a month before they release, so that is only ~5 months most likely with 450 employees.


That is the best possible case, of course. In reality I have a hard time believing that there were much fewer than 450 people working on the game before that.

Also, they did say that the team was three times as big as the team that made Assassin's Creed 1:

http://www.nowgamer.com/news/513/assassins-creed-ii-triples-size-of-dev-team

So about triple the costs of an already expensive project... and probably with more advertising.

 
Yakuzaice said:

Well that 450 is three times the staff on the original game, and that sold over 8 million.  So if anything it was the first games success that is supporting the second, not Wii/DS shovelware.

 My whole point was that it was the HD success that allowed them to put so many resources towards AC2, not Wii/DS games.  Despite the increased cost I still see AC2 being profitable.  Unless it somehow has terrible legs and sells under 3-4 million, it should do fine.



Avinash_Tyagi on 30 November 2009

Another step on the Games industry's path to destruction



 

Predictions:Sales of Wii Fit will surpass the combined sales of the Grand Theft Auto franchiseLifetime sales of Wii will surpass the combined sales of the entire Playstation family of consoles by 12/31/2015 Wii hardware sales will surpass the total hardware sales of the PS2 by 12/31/2010 Wii will have 50% marketshare or more by the end of 2008 (I was wrong!!  It was a little over 48% only)Wii will surpass 45 Million in lifetime sales by the end of 2008 (I was wrong!!  Nintendo Financials showed it fell slightly short of 45 million shipped by end of 2008)Wii will surpass 80 Million in lifetime sales by the end of 2009 (I was wrong!! Wii didn't even get to 70 Million)

Procrastinato on 30 November 2009

There were only 450 people working on AC2 during its beta phase -- the vast majority of them were contracted testers. AC2's team was roughly 70-100 full-timers during most of its development.

OT: Ubisoft should drop Wii development, if it hurts them. Without it, it sounds like they'd be fine. They can come back to it after some other brave publishers have thrown exploratory money at it, and found "gold", as it were.



 

NJ5 on 30 November 2009
Train wreck said:
So lets recap.

Ubisoft losing money, HD titles seem to be doing fine (we dont know for sure) but Ubisoft went out of there way to highlight Wii instability as a factor in them losing money.

EA Montreal shifting focus away from Wii titles due to Wii unpredictability.

Maybe its me but I sense a theme brewing...

As famousringo well pointed out, we should add that both developers have mostly made mediocre Wii titles... to put it mildly.

 



My Mario Kart Wii friend code: 2707-1866-0957

Around the Network
Ail on 30 November 2009
NJ5 said:
Yakuzaice said:

May is pretty late in the cycle.  Less than six months before the game released.  Big games to to go gold around a month before they release, so that is only ~5 months most likely with 450 employees.


That is the best possible case, of course. In reality I have a hard time believing that there were much fewer than 450 people working on the game before that.

Also, they did say that the team was three times as big as the team that made Assassin's Creed 1:

http://www.nowgamer.com/news/513/assassins-creed-ii-triples-size-of-dev-team

So about triple the costs of an already expensive project... and probably with more advertising.

 

Team size usually more than double when getting close to finishing a project due to the QA needs.

 

If you don't believe it, take the time to watch the credit at the end of any game. A very significant portion of them are listed as QA people....



PS3-Xbox360 gap : 1.5 millions and going up in PS3 favor !

PS3-Wii gap : 20 millions and going down !

jammy2211 on 30 November 2009
NJ5 said:
jammy2211 said:

Assassin's Creed 2 is exceeding expectations, why are people doubting it's profitability? Unless Ubisoft expected it to lose money 0_o.

To be clear, my point is that it could not make a great profit depending on how sales end up. Sequels often sell less than their predecessors despite being more frontloaded.

 

On the other hand, Frontloaded games tend to be more profitable as they're selling more copies at a higher price.

 They'd only make a sequel if the original made plenty of money; and if that sequel is exceeding expectations you'd assume it's making more money then the original :/.



NJ5 on 30 November 2009
jammy2211 said:
NJ5 said:
jammy2211 said:

Assassin's Creed 2 is exceeding expectations, why are people doubting it's profitability? Unless Ubisoft expected it to lose money 0_o.

To be clear, my point is that it could not make a great profit depending on how sales end up. Sequels often sell less than their predecessors despite being more frontloaded.

 

On the other hand, Frontloaded games tend to be more profitable as they're selling more copies at a higher price.

 They'd only make a sequel if the original made plenty of money; and if that sequel is exceeding expectations you'd assume it's making more money then the original :/.

Of course it's making more revenue than the original, so far... that's not in question.

 



My Mario Kart Wii friend code: 2707-1866-0957

Avinash_Tyagi on 30 November 2009
Procrastinato said:
There were only 450 people working on AC2 during its beta phase -- the vast majority of them were contracted testers. AC2's team was roughly 70-100 full-timers during most of its development.

OT: Ubisoft should drop Wii development, if it hurts them. Without it, it sounds like they'd be fine. They can come back to it after some other brave publishers have thrown exploratory money at it, and found "gold", as it were.

actually in the longer run, abandoning the Wii would likely result in a greater loss, because HD dev costs are rising, so unless they want to just focus on making a couple of big titles year after year, like AC, and hoping they keep selling enough to beat out dev costs, Wii is their best hope, right now a big flop on the HD consoles could really sink them



 

Predictions:Sales of Wii Fit will surpass the combined sales of the Grand Theft Auto franchiseLifetime sales of Wii will surpass the combined sales of the entire Playstation family of consoles by 12/31/2015 Wii hardware sales will surpass the total hardware sales of the PS2 by 12/31/2010 Wii will have 50% marketshare or more by the end of 2008 (I was wrong!!  It was a little over 48% only)Wii will surpass 45 Million in lifetime sales by the end of 2008 (I was wrong!!  Nintendo Financials showed it fell slightly short of 45 million shipped by end of 2008)Wii will surpass 80 Million in lifetime sales by the end of 2009 (I was wrong!! Wii didn't even get to 70 Million)

Ail on 30 November 2009
NJ5 said:
Train wreck said:
So lets recap.

Ubisoft losing money, HD titles seem to be doing fine (we dont know for sure) but Ubisoft went out of there way to highlight Wii instability as a factor in them losing money.

EA Montreal shifting focus away from Wii titles due to Wii unpredictability.

Maybe its me but I sense a theme brewing...

As famousringo well pointed out, we should add that both developers have mostly made mediocre Wii titles... to put it mildly.

 

Out of 38 third party million sellers on the Wii, Ubisoft has 6.

No other third party has more. They are actually the third party with the most Wii million sellers.

And as Avinash famously said it, if it sells, it's quality !!!!!!!!!



PS3-Xbox360 gap : 1.5 millions and going up in PS3 favor !

PS3-Wii gap : 20 millions and going down !