180°

Ubisoft Aims to Increase Developers Working on Assassin's Creed by 40%; Announces Financial Results

Ubisoft just announced its financial results for the full fiscal year 2022-23, related to the period between April 2022 and March 2023.

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techraptor.net
italiangamer366d ago

Ubisoft and Activision are the real life example of the saying "putting all your eggs in one basket", if Assassin's Creed or Call of Duty collapse they're gonna be in deep shit for sure.

-Foxtrot366d ago

Square Enix are the same with Final Fantasy

shinoff2183366d ago

Not as much as the other 2. We don't get a ff game as often as ac or cod. Square still manages some other releases in between. Just none as big as ff

-Foxtrot366d ago

Maybe not as bad but it's their golden child, take FF away from them and Square Enix are nothing. You have Kingdom Hearts and the like but not really full blown hot sellers.

solideagle365d ago

Square also has Dragon Quest and Kingdom Hearts. did they sell Tomb Raider/Hitman etc?

goldwyncq365d ago

They have Kingdom Hearts and Dragon Quest.

CrimsonWing69365d ago (Edited 365d ago )

What about all the Square Enix releases between FF releases? If FF was annual and we saw little to nothing else from the dev/publisher I’d agree.

They took a chance with Forspoken and it had a massive budget. Just not many liked it.

We’ve gotten some great gems from them like NieR. Dragon Quest is probably going to pretty big.

I think it’s more that FF is their most popular IP that they really put in all they have because the gamble won’t be like a Forspoken level disaster.

Capcom’s a bit similar with their IPs that sell. You get far more Monster Hunter and Resident Evil releases versus the new IP stuff.

Chevalier365d ago (Edited 365d ago )

Square has a very successful FF14 bringing in regular revenue and Dragonquest too so Squares fine. Plus FF isn't annual like AC or COD.

bangoskank365d ago (Edited 365d ago )

Not true, and Final Fantasy are actually good games that aren't rehashes of the same thing over and over again. Ubisoft should shift their focus on new IPs or something original or maybe not letting anticipated games like the sequel to Beyond Good & Evil 2 become vaporware. That company is a complete mess. I could see them being bought in the next couple of years.

-Foxtrot365d ago (Edited 365d ago )

The point is guys compared to FF games like Kingdom Hearts, Nier, Dragon Quest don't sell the same, they sell but they don't do FF numbers so they'd rather put all their eggs in that FF basket rather than doing more of the other games and new IPs

The last main game of Nier was Nier: Automata in 2017

Kingdom Hearts III was released in 2019

Dragon Quest XI was released in 2017

It's 2023 and a new mainline Nier hasn't been announced and the other two don't have release dates.

Over the past couple of years we've had multiple expansions for FFXIV, FFVII Remake, the Pixel Remaster, FFXVI, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion

It's clear were Square Enix priorities are, they couldn't even put the effort into a new IP like Forspoken

At the end of the day Square don't take risks because of FF

andy85365d ago (Edited 365d ago )

They are though. DQ and KH sell very well.

+ Show (6) more repliesLast reply 365d ago
isarai366d ago

And "Too Many cooks spoil the broth"

jznrpg365d ago (Edited 365d ago )

@mooppeister Feeling frisky?

365d ago
Chocoburger365d ago (Edited 365d ago )

AC has been spoiled ever since they ruined the lore, changed the freerunning, added endless grinding and upgrading elements, moved the attacks to the shoulder buttons for no reason, infinitely spawning named characters hunting you, and a massive, uninteresting skill tree, placed on a game world that is too big, bland, and boring, packed with copy / paste locations, all designed to artificially extend the length of their crappy games.

Nothing Ubisoft can do to salvage this train wreck of a franchise anymore.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 365d ago
ModsDoBetter365d ago

Didn’t Ubi also have some controversy around their results with the top brass blaming the devs?

The last innovation AC ever seen was the jump to RPG with Origins and since then it’s just been bloat & microtransactions.

Feel the same with all of their main titles to be honest: Far Cry 1/2/3, all excellent. I’ve bought and tried 4/5/6 but can not get into them for the life of me.

WatchDogs has been an average franchise since inception and pretty much left. The Crew was a decent idea, executed poorly. Same with The Division, massive downgrades all around.

The only games I think they’ve managed well are For Honor and Siege as even Ghost Recon has been absolutely butchered.

They really should revamp Splinter Cell & Rainbow Six Vegas or something similar. Give AC and Far Cry a break for a while to keep it feeling fresh.

gleepot365d ago

ABK has so many successful franchises. CoD collapse would leave a huge dent, but they have many more baskets of eggs.

+ Show (2) more repliesLast reply 365d ago
senorfartcushion365d ago

Wow, just like Activision with Call of Duty.

This sounds like you want AC to be a live service platform. Well if you keep making crap like Xdefiant and The Division Heartland, you may as well just give up making a single-player open world game into a crap live service.

Who’s have though that the game from the PS3 demo disc with the white-cloaked assassin scaling a wall and knifing a Templar would eventually go on to become a crappy, useless multiplayer online-only storefront simulator with terribly-implemented RPG mechanics?

Profchaos365d ago (Edited 365d ago )

Agree but let's be honest back in 07 who thought AC would even get a sequel let alone a franchise it was mediocre at best and largely average. Critic's were quite harsh from memory

Pyrofire95365d ago

No. Activision tore down their studios and turned them into COD. Ubisoft is making their other games just as before, this is just an addition to their AC teams.

anast365d ago

They need a lot of tailing and eavesdropping missions to capture that old AC magic...

Pyrofire95365d ago

It seems like many are taking this info and just going "big company move mean bad company" Look I'm pretty sick of games taking 4-8 years to release. AC releasing 1-2 years apart is a great spot for me. The only one releasing this year is Mirage which is a smaller game than the RPG ones.
So what are people actually complaining about? Because adding to their workforce isn't directly good or bad.
Ubi still makes other games, adding to their workforce doesn't take from those.
You can bet any of the mobile and spin-off games are skippable if you really want, so they really don't effect you in any negative way or at all.
If you don't even like AC, why are you here?

130°

Square Enix Is Going Multiplatform; The Layoffs & Its Past Don't Inspire Confidence

After its latest games didn't meet sales targets, Square Enix is going multiplatform but the company's track record isn't convincing.

Scissorman9h ago

Square Enix been multiplatform for decades, a few exclusively-deals doesn't make them any less multiplatform.

fr0sty9h ago

Nor is selling their games on a console with only 25 million install base going to bring their sales to where they hope they will be... Unless they somehow manage to dumb down FF7 trilogy to work on switch, they aren't going to have much luck. They already released it on PC, after all.

SegaSaturn6698h ago

It kind of does, giving preference to a certain platform by timed exclusivity. Console ports generally feel superior. Legend of mana PC port extremely broken

neutralgamer19928h ago

Sega

It doesn’t when square themselves didn’t want to fund the development of remake. It’s only after the success of the 1st they realized their mistake but now contract is signed. If it wasn’t for Sony there would be no FF7 remakes. Same goes for silent hill 2 with Konami. They don’t want to fund AAA budget. Companies like PlayStation and Nintendo get blamed when in reality they are saving some of these franchises

Remember sega didn’t want to fund bayonetta and epic games didn’t want to fund another gears of war. It’s easy to blame console makers but they are the ones taking the risk and paying huge upfront costs without seeing the final product. FF7 remake trilogy won’t be coming to Xbox now or in the future. PlayStation and PC is what square signed up for. Sony paid them more than they would make from Xbox sales.

ravens528h ago

I just wonder when everyone is going to demand that the Square Enix exclusives with Nintendo come to PS and Xbox. Or it's just the PS exclusives that matter lol

phoenixwing8h ago(Edited 8h ago)

I'd love for the nintendo exclusives to come to pc or ps5. They'd actually be playable then.

neutralgamer19928h ago

Raven

Exactly and that’s where square enix does more exclusive than any other platform. Gaming is square has always been very unrealistic with their sales expectations. Remember when tomb raider reboot sold 7.5 million and square said it wasn’t enough. They need to spend less on development and have more realistic expectations from sales.

And those thinking games being not on Xbox makes a difference don’t understand we have a decade plus of data showing square enix games having less than 20% of their multiplatform sales on Xbox (final fantasy series) and Nintendo consoles aren’t strong enough to run any current games. Nintendo switch should be as strong as Xbox one x atleast but we all know that’s most likely won’t happen

RoadRacer7h ago

@raven

thing is, as neutral said in their comm, the switch isn't strong enough to run flagship SE games
i think what SE does is, it makes unique games for switch only so that it has something for that console too. Thats where all the "underlined sans" rpgs go to mostly

maybe things will change when Swtich 2 drops cuz that's gonna be as strong as ps4 afaik from the rumors flying around

TheGamingHounds8h ago

@Scissorman

Your point is valid enough but when the icon of this company is limited to one console in timed-exclusivity, it means the company has crossed the line. By some degree at least

All things aside, Square itself stated "aggressive multiplatform strategies" so we all know what it's talking about

Scissorman5h ago(Edited 5h ago)

Then the headline should read "Square To Drop Exclusively Deals in Pursuit of A Sweeping Multiplatform Strategy". I don't recall this argument when Square Enix released Bravely Default, Octopath Traveler, and Triangle Strategy on one platform. And even if FF is the icon, not all of its titles have gone to one platform. We're talking about three games, one of which is already on PC. Did Square suddenly go 'multiplatform' after it released subsequent Tomb Raider sequels on more than just the Xbox? It's just a silly way of putting it.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 5h ago
TheGamingHounds8h ago(Edited 8h ago)

SE needs to go all in optimization. Broken PC ports won't help its case, especially with big releases like mainline Final Fantasy

Asterphoenix7h ago

It's actually simple. What doesn't inspire confidence is Square allocating their budgets on the wrong projects such as Forspoken, Avengers, Babylons Fall and Foamstars.

Square has always been multiplatform since PS3/360 days which 80 % of their games are. People kick up a fuss over PS exclusivity but not Nintendo which has more exclusive projects console exclusive from Square.

FF16 has done ok but not enough to fix the blunders that the past mistakes Square has made with some of their projects. FF7 Rebirth is unclear we'll see a PC release for sure so it's hard to say so far not as good as they would of liked.

Then again unrealistic expectations. If it weren't for Sony these games would at least had another 2 years development time. So some people need to be realistic in that regard.

Scissorman5h ago(Edited 5h ago)

It's the blunders that set those expectations so high. If you remove those from the equation, I bet the sales numbers would be more than stellar. Square believes it's okay to release a pile of risky, middling, garbage because the big boys will ultimately subsidize the cost. Don't worry if Forspoken sells poorly, FF16 will surely sell 10 million copies to balance that right out. Oh wait, it only sold like 4 million. Well that's a disaster. Meanwhile games that sell 2 million units with comparable budgets are deemed successful.

RoadRacer7h ago

Square Enix just really need to revise its expectations. Maybe consider a change in strategy on dev end as well. Multiplat will help for sure but only good games that are marketed well will sell

70°

How the names Arrowhead Game Studios and Helldivers 2 came to be

Arrowhead Game Studios CEO Johan Pilestedt explains how the studio name comes from a name translation, plus the background on the game title “Helldivers.”

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70°

Activision team is opening a new game studio in Poland 'Elsewhere Entertainment' to build new AAA IP

Microsoft's Activision subsidiary announced today that it is opening a new game development studio to take advantage of the huge talent pool growing in Poland. It'll be the second Activision studio based in the region, joining Infinity Ward Krakow, although this studio is, in fact, not working on Call of Duty.

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