14 DAY TRIAL // Large French developer and publisher Ubisoft has a pretty big franchise portfolio, with heavy hitters like Assassin's Creed, Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell or Rainbow Six Vegas, but its best selling franchises aren't among these, as a recent statistic shows that the most units were sold in its Rayman Raving Rabbids series.
Siliconera decided to study how Ubisoft's largest franchises sold during their lifetime, and found some pretty shocking things, especially when it compared Ubisoft's so-called casual franchises with the more hardcore, established ones.
The best selling franchise for the French company is the Rabbids one, a spin-off of the older Rayman series, which won over lots of Nintendo platform owners, and sold 29 million copies.
Right after that is Rainbow Six Vegas, a series in the bigger Tom Clancy universe developed by Ubisoft, which moved 23 million units.
The third spot is a tie between another Tom Clancy property, Splinter Cell, and the Petz series, both managing to move 22 million copies.
Next up, there's the relatively new Assassin's Creed franchise, with 20 million units sold, most of which coming from the most recent Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Ubisoft's fastest selling game ever released.
The franchise is closely followed by the Imagine series, which accumulated 19 million units sold, all largely for the Nintendo DS.
Three hardcore franchises follow, with Ghost Recon selling 18 million, followed by Prince of Persia (17M) and Driver (15M).
Don't forget, though, that the casual franchises have seen many different titles released up until now, so it's not that huge of a surprise.
Still, even if hardcore gamers are certain to cringe at these numbers, it's great to hear that Ubisoft is making plenty of money to afford to take care and invest in the "serious" franchises like Assassin's Creed or Splinter Cell.