The French games publisher announces that its financial objectives will be worse than expected for the current financial year.
A disappointment for the community of fans of the game who were impatiently awaiting the date of November 12 and for investors, worried about the spiral of bad news that the French video game publisher has been experiencing for several months. Ubisoft postpones the release date of its blockbuster “Assassin’s Creed Shadows” to February 14, 2025. The new opus of this saga is the most ambitious game in the group’s history, in terms of development budget. “ We realize we need more time to polish and refine the experience, pushing some of our key features further », indicated Ubisoft in a press release. The game on which Ubisoft’s future largely rests will therefore miss the Christmas season, very important for the video game sector.
Furthermore, the group is warning the financial markets that its results for the 2024-2025 financial year will be less good than announced. The group blames the backlash for the very poor start of its game Star Wars Outlawsreleased on August 27. “Our second quarter performance did not meet our expectations“, said Yves Guillemot, CEO of the French video games giant in a press release to investors.
Ubisoft now anticipates “net bookings” (sales excluding deferred revenue, its benchmark indicator) of around 350-370 million euros in the second quarter, compared to 500 million euros initially forecast.
The publisher forecasts a turnover of around 1.95 billion euros for the 2024-2025 financial year (-16% year-on-year)
«Given the less favorable release window and the potential for further delays in responding to backlash» sparked by the game, Deutsche Bank revised downwards its sales forecasts for “Assassin’s Creed Shadows” from 8 to 7 million units over the 12 months after release.
Ubisoft shares had already lost 50% of their value in one year before these announcements.
