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

Joelcool7 on 30 November 2009

Well honestly UbiSoft's Wii line-up was pretty sad its no wonder the market didn't end favourably for them. UbiSoft is focusing on casual gamers which has been very successful for them in the past but the market is changing casual gamers aren't buying new games, why would they, they aren't gamers after all.

UbiSoft was expecting to make a fortune on Wii software, I highly doubt they lost any money on them. Since the Wii games they have made have been fairly cheaply developed. I'm guessing UbiSoft just didn't make the profits they expected to make for 2009 on the Wii. I'm guessing most of the money UbiSoft lost was actually there HD games, not the cheap shovel ware that they have been selling on Wii.



-JC7

"In God We Trust - In Games We Play " - Joel Reimer

 

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Crazymann on 30 November 2009

Ubisoft, sucks! They are totally irrelevant to driving the market. If they want to reclaim old glory, they need to do more than release "imagine" games, craptastic sequels and movie tie-ins. They are the to the 2000's what THQ was to the late 80's/early 90's (those who have been around enough will know what I mean.)

UBISoft is even more craptacular than EA and Take-Two and that is saying a lot*.

 

 

Duke Nukem 1991 to 2009 R.I.P. - "Those Take-Two Bastards are gonna pay for suing up my game!" - Duke



famousringo on 01 December 2009
theRepublic said:
I posted this in a similar thread (everything in this post is only about the Wii):

This actually doesn't include Rabbids Go Home. The report is for April through September.

Number of games sold:

April: 690,425
May: 439,382
June: 386,547
July: 394,511
August: 296,745
September: 367,952

Total sales for this time frame: 2,575,562

Total sales for the life of these games up to the end of September: 16,738,783

It seems to me, the problem is that Ubisoft's games are just getting old. The legs of their best selling games are starting to dry up and there is nothing to replace it. They did not have a single big release during this time frame, and some months didn't have any releases at all (or they didn't make the chart).

Their top sellers by far were My Fitness Coach and Gold's Gym: Cardio Workout. After that RRR: TV Party and Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip were the next best selling games.

The problem? By the end of September all those games were over 44 weeks old. That means Ubisoft hasn't released anything big on the Wii in almost a year. That is their fault, not Wii gamers, not the Wii, and not Nintendo.

So what were the games Ubisoft released on the Wii during this time frame?

Dawn of Discovery (June 2009)
Summer Sports 2: Island Sports Party (July 2009)
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (September 2009)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash-Up (September 2009)
Where's Waldo? The Fantastic Journey (September 2009)
Price is Right: 2010 Edition, The (September 2009)
Family Feud: 2010 Edition (September 2009)

Did they really expect these games to take off? Or did they expect the legs of their existing games to hold up better? It is possible they were expecting more out of the TMNT game, but for this report, the game had only been out for ONE WEEK.

Would Ubisoft complain about the sales of their HD games if their lineup had been this empty? Somehow, I think not.

Dang, that's a pretty comprehensive post. You did everything but wrap it up in a pretty little bow.



"The worst part about these reviews is they are [subjective]--and their scores often depend on how drunk you got the media at a Street Fighter event."  — Mona Hamilton, Capcom Senior VP of Marketing
*Image indefinitely borrowed from BrainBoxLtd without his consent.

hanafuda on 01 December 2009

'The problem? By the end of September all those games were over 44 weeks old. That means Ubisoft hasn't released anything big on the Wii in almost a year. That is their fault, not Wii gamers, not the Wii, and not Nintendo.'.

Do you have a list of the 'big' third party games that sold big in 2009?



PSN - hanafuda

numonex on 01 December 2009

Only Assassins Creed 2 selling well at the moment.
Ubisoft releasing a lot of Vaporware onto the Wii which fell way short of their illustrious sales expectations. Wii has a high install base does not mean third party games are guaranteed to sell if they are of poor quality.
A change in strategy will need to be adopted. Release quality games for the Wii which people will buy.
Ubisoft may need to lay off some workers to increase its share price and reduce costs.



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NJ5 on 01 December 2009
hanafuda said:
'The problem? By the end of September all those games were over 44 weeks old. That means Ubisoft hasn't released anything big on the Wii in almost a year. That is their fault, not Wii gamers, not the Wii, and not Nintendo.'.

Do you have a list of the 'big' third party games that sold big in 2009?

Off the top of my head... MH3, Grand Slam Tennis, Tiger Woods, House of the Dead:Overkill.

 



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heruamon on 01 December 2009

SC:C will deliver!



"...You can't kill ideas with a sword, and you can't sink belief structures with a broadside. You defeat them by making them change..."

- From By Schism Rent Asunder

Bruno Muñoz on 01 December 2009

Wii cannot sell casual games.



MaxwellGT2000 on 01 December 2009
theRepublic said:
I posted this in a similar thread (everything in this post is only about the Wii):

This actually doesn't include Rabbids Go Home. The report is for April through September.

Number of games sold:

April: 690,425
May: 439,382
June: 386,547
July: 394,511
August: 296,745
September: 367,952

Total sales for this time frame: 2,575,562

Total sales for the life of these games up to the end of September: 16,738,783

It seems to me, the problem is that Ubisoft's games are just getting old. The legs of their best selling games are starting to dry up and there is nothing to replace it. They did not have a single big release during this time frame, and some months didn't have any releases at all (or they didn't make the chart).

Their top sellers by far were My Fitness Coach and Gold's Gym: Cardio Workout. After that RRR: TV Party and Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip were the next best selling games.

The problem? By the end of September all those games were over 44 weeks old. That means Ubisoft hasn't released anything big on the Wii in almost a year. That is their fault, not Wii gamers, not the Wii, and not Nintendo.

So what were the games Ubisoft released on the Wii during this time frame?

Dawn of Discovery (June 2009)
Summer Sports 2: Island Sports Party (July 2009)
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (September 2009)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash-Up (September 2009)
Where's Waldo? The Fantastic Journey (September 2009)
Price is Right: 2010 Edition, The (September 2009)
Family Feud: 2010 Edition (September 2009)

Did they really expect these games to take off? Or did they expect the legs of their existing games to hold up better? It is possible they were expecting more out of the TMNT game, but for this report, the game had only been out for ONE WEEK.

Would Ubisoft complain about the sales of their HD games if their lineup had been this empty? Somehow, I think not.

Not bad thought Smash Up should have sold better than it did cause it's a great game, but the TMNT IP is old. 

Interesting though, when games like Ubisofts Imagine series has started to stop selling they start reporting losses Imagine that :P

Rabbids Go Home isn't likely to turn their fortunes around, same going for Shaun White, unless both these titles sell well over time and then it'll be a little while before they see nice returns on them.  They have a good line up for next year however with publishing NMH2 and then Red Steel 2.  And as long as the PoP announcement was honest, all consoles including Wii will get a new PoP next year.



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heruamon on 01 December 2009

^^^ no games released, but they are spending quite a bit of dough.



"...You can't kill ideas with a sword, and you can't sink belief structures with a broadside. You defeat them by making them change..."

- From By Schism Rent Asunder