14 DAY TRIAL // Ubisoft has reported strong sales numbers for the third fiscal quarter of 2008, which ended on December 31, 2008. The French publisher revealed having reached sales of 508 million Euros, which is quite a bit better than it expected when it announced its estimations for this quarter. Compared to the same period of 2007, the increase was one of 12.9% and overall during 2008 sales of Ubisoft games increased by about 20%.
These better than expected results were a direct result of three factors. First came the strong sales posted by Far Cry 2, which has sold 2.9 million units until now and Raving Rabbids TV Party that has sold 1.5 million units. Ubisoft is saying that the re-imagined Prince of Persia has been slow to reach its full potential, with just 2.2 million units sold since launch but Shaun White Showboarding has been quite a success, with the publisher pointing out that it “was the quarter’s number two sports game in the United States and recorded 2.3 million units sell-in worldwide.” The casual games division has also been doing quite well and this balanced offer is seen as the key to the financial results.
Yves Guillemot, who is the Chief Executive Officer, commented that “The Christmas period proved to be even more competitive than we expected. Against this backdrop, our sales figures demonstrate the strength of Ubisoft's business model which is based on competitive development costs, a varied range of owned brands, constant innovation and a great capacity for responsiveness. We posted strong growth on the Nintendo consoles which accounted for 44% of our sales, with two particularly successful titles for the Wii – Shaun White Snowboarding and Rayman Raving Rabbids® TV Party.”
Still, Ubisoft said that it would be cautious in announcing its outlook for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008 and would also approach 2009 carefully considering that the entire gaming industry is under the effect of the world wide economic meltdown.