Ubisoft takes $117m loss in first half of FY 2010
It was not the greatest day for Ubisoft, who had to report on Monday that the first six months of its current fiscal year sucked; the Paris, France-based publisher and developer saw an operating loss of $117 million USD. Still the loss was in line with the company’s targets, so no one should be all that shocked that that prediction came to fruition. Factors affecting the company’s gross profits included a drop in sales over the fiscal year to date, and a sharp decline in gross profits due to older titles that are being discounted by retailers. An unstable Wii software market is also hurting sales, according to CEO Yves Guillemot.
On the plus side, the company raked in sales of $249 million USD in the three-month period that ended on September 30, 2009 and first week sales of Assassin’s Creed II were up 32 percent over the first AC game. Ubisoft is also pinning some hopes on the opening of James Cameron’s Avatar film boosting sales of the games based on it when it launches at the end of this week. We’ll see.
Looking ahead Ubisoft expects third-quarter revenues of $811 million and Fiscal Year 2010 (which ends on March 31, 2010) revenues of $1.56 billion USD.
Another interesting bit of news – coming out of the conference call following the release of Ubisoft’s latest financial results – revealed that Ubisoft is already hard at work on games for both Sony’s new motion control device for PS3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 motion controlling technology. Guillemot said that the company is working on right around ten games Microsoft’s Natal – which should be ready within the first six months Natal’s launch. Sony’s motion control product will get four to five games from Ubisoft. Guillemot pointed out that this could all change in the next 12 months and that 70 percent of these games will be based on new intellectual properties – with many of these games being categorized as casual.
