With a 52-Percent Drop in Revenues, Ubisoft Still Has Huge Expectations for This Season

Ubisoft got hit hard in the sales department over its first fiscal quarter of 2009. Its sales went down 51 percent compared with last year, and, even though the entire industry saw a fell in product sales, Ubisoft has its own fault in the matter. With only one major release in the time frame, the company couldn't have expected to match last year's sales revenue. Now, it released an official report for its first half of the fiscal year, and no improvements seem to have been made. Still, this time around, the company knew what to expect and wasn't so surprised by the 52-percent drop in revenues.

Twelve months ago, Ubisoft earned €344 million or $511 million, as opposed to this year's €166 million or $247 million. Of this paltry sum, most was provided by the 900,000 copies Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood sold. Anno 1404, or Dawn of Discovery as it's known in America, came out on the PC, Wii and DS and also pulled its weight. But, according to Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, other Ubisoft products, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash-Up, Academy of Champions and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs performed well under his expectations.

During the same time last year, Ubisoft released big games like Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway, Haze and Soul Calibur IV, which it distributed in Europe, so it would have been hard for the little titles to outperform such giants. Even so, the company expects this to be a very good season nevertheless, as the sequel to one of its best games is awaiting release. Believed to be "the most important in Ubisoft's history" by the company, these sales will be led by Assassin's Creed 2 and firmly supported by Avatar: The Game and Rabbids Go Home.

Expected to bring a profit of €540 million or $803 million, these games could bring a six-percent increase in revenues for the October-December slate compared with last year. For 2010, Guillemot said that Track Mania 2 would have a "mid-2010" release, while investors received some good news about another project as well. Heroes of Might and Magic Kingdoms, Ubisoft's massively multiplayer online role-playing game, has entered the beta testing stage and should be out in the early period of 2010 as an international release.