While everybody at Nintendo and Game Freak is busy rubbing cold, hard, sexy cash across their nipples thanks to ridiculous number of Pokémon X&Y sales, things aren’t quite as jubilant over at Ubisoft. Apparently some of their titles just haven’t met expectations. Unfortunately, it’s some of their better recent ones.
Both the excellent Splinter Cell: Blacklist and the wonderful Rayman Legends came in below the company’s expected sales targets.
During an investor call, as reported by CVG, Ubisoft’s chief financial officer Alain Martinez said that both Splinter Cell: Blacklist and Rayman Legends failed to set the charts on fire; though he didn’t specifically say what those targets were.
“As we have said we have experienced lower sales than we anticipated when we gave our targets. Already released games such as Splinter Cell, Rayman and others,” he said.
It’s entirely possible that Ubisoft is doing a Square-Enix, and expecting far too many sales – but I don’t think so. I think perhaps they marketed Splinter Cell to the Call of Duty crowd too much instead of focusing on the stealth that made Sam Fisher popular in the first place. As for Rayman Legends? It’s never really made much of a dent with gamers, despite its critical acclaim – plus its delay for multiplatform release put it up against significantly heavier hitters, like Bioshock Infinite, the Wonderful 101 and of course, Farming Simulator on consoles.
Ubisoft initially forecast $1.94 billion in sales income for the end of the 2013 fiscal year, but has now lowered that to just $1.38 billion.
Last Updated: October 16, 2013
Admiral Chief Ninja
October 16, 2013 at 11:15
Sad to see 🙁
Some great games are duds, something wrong here man.
SaintsRowNigri
October 16, 2013 at 11:24
Is there? Games are getting expensive. People cannot fork out all that much for day 1 releases anymore I believe. Well, I am one of those. My day 1 purchases have now fizzled out to one every few months…
Admiral Chief Ninja
October 16, 2013 at 11:26
My gaming purchases are down to Steam Specials.
They should change their ROI model to like 12-18 months, not 12-18 days
SaintsRowNigri
October 16, 2013 at 11:27
Yeah, those are quite sweet. I am bargain hunting like mad these days myself.
Alien Emperor Trevor
October 16, 2013 at 11:37
Me too. The last game I bought day one was Borderlands 2. The next will be Witcher 3. Other than that, I’m happy to wait.
ToshZA
October 16, 2013 at 11:41
BL2(pc), Diablo 3 (Xbox) are the only 2 day 1 purchases I’ve made in years.
Steam or store sales. BT games has many sales, all the time.
Admiral Chief Ninja
October 16, 2013 at 11:44
mmmmmmmm witcher 3!
When are you giving me my cards dammit!!!
Alien Emperor Trevor
October 16, 2013 at 12:03
Give? TRADE! 😉
When I’m back home later this evening we’ll make a plan.
Admiral Chief Ninja
October 16, 2013 at 12:35
Hehe, cool
Fair usage John
October 16, 2013 at 11:57
I agree.
Hammersteyn
October 16, 2013 at 11:26
Same
Macethy
October 16, 2013 at 11:26
I haven’t had a day one purchase this year, no game this year has been worth that much money.
SaintsRowNigri
October 16, 2013 at 11:29
With that I have to agree. Even the mighty GTA V I feel I should have waited for bargain bin release really. Besides, the game I am sinking way too much time into is Skyrim. Got myself Skyrim with all expansions at takealot for about R300.00 the other day.
Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)
October 16, 2013 at 13:02
Absolutely! Where I would have bought most releases in a month, nowadays I’m lucky if I can squeeze one or two games out of my wallet. Times are tough, and the rand/dollar exchange isn’t in our favour.
Fair usage John
October 16, 2013 at 11:57
Blacklist is still on my wishlist on Steam, my only problem so far is having too many games. Maybe (forgive me for saying this) there are too many games out there and people fail to really appreciate the good ones that do come out still. Marketing seems to be playing way too big of a role there too.
SaintsRowNigri
October 16, 2013 at 11:59
Or maybe it is because the game sounds boring. Honestly, I read about Blacklist and the game sounded a bit meh to be honest…
Fair usage John
October 16, 2013 at 12:02
To Splinter Cell fans such as myself, that’s not quite the case. But I buy Steam Specials over expensive new releases because I can get two or three games even for half the price.
SaintsRowNigri
October 16, 2013 at 12:05
Don’t get me wrong. I also enjoy the odd Splinter Cell outing. But there was nothing there to make me run out and buy the game on release date/week/month.
Didier
October 16, 2013 at 11:24
Because I dont have money to buy it that why!
Macethy
October 16, 2013 at 11:25
Finished Black List the other day and was quite disappointed. They really did try and cater to the COD kids with this one…
SaintsRowNigri
October 16, 2013 at 11:30
Has Resident Evil taught the world nothing?
Alien Emperor Trevor
October 16, 2013 at 11:36
I think what they need to do is extend the time period for sales/profitability. Games aren’t movies where people rush out to buy & once the initial push is over, then it’s pretty much over. If they looked at purchases over the first 3 – 6 months the picture would probably be much better.
JHN
October 16, 2013 at 11:40
I think these guys set their targets too high, I mean look at SE with tombraider that game made a boat load of cash but still didnt meet expectations, its insane.
TiMsTeR1033
October 16, 2013 at 11:49
Both those games, didn’t have the hype they needed… They both were good games, but they didn’t do anything amazing either! Gta v has done amazing things, the world, the story, the online are superb. The way games seem to sell these days is they need to make the gamers excited! show them something WOW! or make them wait for another screen shot or video. It paid off for Rockstar… Then again nothing rockstar makes is bad…
Fair usage John
October 16, 2013 at 11:58
The absent pc version of GTA V is terrible.
TiMsTeR1033
October 16, 2013 at 12:06
Next year man. It is coming Trust in Tim. I am hardly wrong when I say that… True story.
Alien Emperor Trevor
October 16, 2013 at 12:40
Trust in Tim. I like that. We should invent a snappy acronym for it. (I KEEEED!)
SaintsRowNigri
October 16, 2013 at 12:07
Oh Yeah, Cousin??
TiMsTeR1033
October 16, 2013 at 12:07
Dude was still a good game… Had annoying elements, but was fun.
SaintsRowNigri
October 16, 2013 at 12:11
Yeah no. GTA IV was quite the snorefest really.
TiMsTeR1033
October 16, 2013 at 12:13
The Story had fun times, if it was a snorfest it wouldn’t of gotten such good reviews.. Anyway I am done talking about Gta 4. To me I liked it, to you perhaps bullshit. Either way Gta v is great.
SaintsRowNigri
October 16, 2013 at 12:20
OK. Just a thought: Reviews are not always the be-all and end-all indicator if a game is great or not….
TiMsTeR1033
October 16, 2013 at 12:23
Then why is it their job to review games… I would understand if was one reviewer or 2… but when a whole bunch say the same thing it means that they agree.
Vampyre Squirrel
October 16, 2013 at 12:46
Kill it!!! KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!
NecroRince
October 16, 2013 at 11:56
Yeah, and Tomb raider also failed to live up to OVER INFLATED EXPECTATIONS. Not every game is going to sell like GTAV, especially when games LIKE GTAV are just around the corner from release date. Makes me very sad, VERY!
Fair usage John
October 16, 2013 at 12:00
Games of different genres shouldn’t really be competing but because people can only afford one or MAYBE two titles every few months they go for what they’ll get the most play time out of.
TiMsTeR1033
October 16, 2013 at 12:09
Odd question.. on Gta online each time a patch came out were you prompted to install it? just thought about it, only been prompted once..
NecroRince
October 16, 2013 at 12:22
Think there have only been 2? Maybe the second included the first?
TiMsTeR1033
October 16, 2013 at 12:24
You had a prompt come up twice… I only had it once.. Like when you start the game says installing update for Gta v.. i only seen it happen once. They on third patch now..
Vampyre Squirrel
October 16, 2013 at 12:45
First patch was release of GTA Online, second was a fix for GTAV and Online… they were 59MB each.
I got 2 prompts.
TiMsTeR1033
October 16, 2013 at 12:49
only 2? so the on that came out on the 9th you didn’t get a prompt? I got the 2 then…
Vampyre Squirrel
October 16, 2013 at 12:58
I dunno? I got 2 patches… I dunno what versions they were or anything. I just know one was for release and the other fixed the tutorial and other stuff.
Ryanza
October 16, 2013 at 12:11
After playing Splinter Cell Conviction I have zero interest in Splinter Cell now. I never even finished Conviction. And I was a big Splinter Cell 1, 2, 3 fan.
Plus to add, now that I am back on the PC, Ubisoft’s Uplay has brought my interest for Ubisoft games down to zero.
Do not support DRM in any form.
Fair usage John
October 16, 2013 at 12:20
I must agree. Uplay is terrible and Conviction really was not typical Splinter Cell at all. Double agent was already starting the downward trend.
GooseZA
October 17, 2013 at 09:23
Rayman is amazing. Everyone should play it.