14 DAY TRIAL // Video game publisher Ubisoft has announced that it is dropping its draconian Digital Rights Management measures from all its PC-based titles and it seems that the company might also be changing positions when it comes to launch dates.
When asked by Rock, Paper, Shotgun about the delay that PC-based versions of the their titles are saddled with, Stephanie Perotti, who is the worldwide director of online games at Ubisoft, stated, “We need to improve our communication, and make sure we provide better visibility to the PC community on our release dates for PC.”
The Ubisoft executive says that the company is trying to tailor each game to the platform it is launched on, which is a rather feeble excuse considering the fact that most development work tends to be done on the PC for this console generation.
Often titles for the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 are even demoed on high-end PCs with attached console controller.
She added, “This year you will be able to enjoy Far Cry 3 at the same time as the console version. Assassin’s Creed III, which is a huge game, is coming just a few weeks after the console version, while in the past it was – what – months after. So we’re really focusing on making sure that at the same time we provide a really good PC experience, and really as close as possible to the other versions.”
Far Cry 3 is a first-person shooter that will be launched on all platforms on November 29 of this year in Europe and on December 4 in North America.
At the other end of the spectrum, Assassin’s Creed 3 is appearing at the end of October on home consoles, and PC players will have to wait until the end of next month.
The delay is set to limit the impact of piracy.