This is news that no one saw coming! Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft, announced in an exclusive interview with Always For Keyboard that his group would acquire several major groups. This strategy aims to make the French publisher a major actor on the world stage, and compete with Mirosoft; with the takeover of Activision-Blizzard-King, the American company is indeed advancing as a steamroller across the industry. Obviously, Ubisoft also has a say!
« Sony is logical decision“explains Guillemot. ” They have their own console, an extensive library of games, and several dedicated studios. When the CEO of Sony approached us to talk regarding a merger, we immediately saw how desperate their situation was.“. So these are several iconic licenses who find you under the wing of Ubisoft, but what regarding exclusives? Guillemot has already anticipated all of this: “ Sony does have a reputation for blocking certain content, and we don’t condone this practice. But it still looks profitable. So we will continue, my faith« .
The second significant purchase is that of From Softwaredeveloper of the saga Souls and derivative games. ” Again, the choice is self-evident. We madeAssassin’s Creed an RPG-like license, trying to adapt the open world concept. With all the success we’ve had, we think we can learn a couple things from From Software. There will also be a good synergy with Sony, since they are all Japanese. There is therefore no desire to restrain anyone on our part“. With the announced extension ofElder Ringthe first open world of the Japanese studio and acclaimed by critics, this purchase might well to make a profit fast enough !
More surprisingly, Pif Gadget will also join Ubisoft, but this acquisition is an integral part of the strategy of the Breton CEO: “ We have to admit that we have communication problems. Today more than ever, and even more than yesterday, but less than tomorrow or next Thursday, we need to reconnect with our fans. Pif Gadget will allow us to better control the situation surrounding our business, to say what we think. We are a responsible company, which attaches as much importance to the realization of good games as to the respect of our employees, and also of our employees.« .
Yves Guillemot indicated that other takeovers might arrive in the next few months, or even in the next few minutes. He revealed to us that he wanted to redeem Bethesdain particular for the future license Starfield which looks promising. ” Unfortunately, Microsoft had a green thumb and pulled the rug out from under us, and I don’t appreciate it. Already their name resembles ours, plus they buy out the publishers we wanted to buy out first. But without going so far as to raise their great dead, we will continue to fight hard to offer our fans the best games possible.« .
How to finance all this? It must indeed be recognized that the last years of Ubisoft have been rather disappointingbut as Guillemot himself points out, this “ it’s not with journalope reviews that you pay the rent, but with DLCs“. Indeed, the sales of additional content from the licenses Anno et Assassin’s Creed offered the Breton company an excellent year 2022, with a net profit of 1,605,419,245 euros, and 16 cents. Despite rumors of the sale of his business, it appears that Yves Guillemot was able to maintain a business as healthy as profitable !
We therefore wish Ubisoft a lot of success in the rest of their adventures, until they lay us a complete game. As a reminder, the group has a great string of games in development, of which here is a non-exhaustive list:
