Ubisoft’s bean counters have been announcing their latest financial figures and even though they have some awesome titles that are doing really well, Assassin’s Creed 2 and Just Dance to name just 2, they are still as a company hurting pretty bad.
Ubisoft are expecting to reveal an operating loss of around $72.5 million for this financial year and it’s apparently all the DS’s and casual gamers fault. It seems that Ubisoft may have invested too heavily in this market and now that the market is dropping they are starting to hurt.
Two casualties off the current state of affairs are Splinter Cell Conviction which had a 23rd of February release date and R.U.S.E both being pushed into the next financial year. Splinter Cell Conviction is now expected to be released in April while no release month has been announced for R.U.S.E yet.
It sounds like they are moving them to get them into the next financial year which makes absolutely no sense to me so I will simply fall back on them not being ready yet.
I also received a press release this morning detailing the split screen co-op ability of Splinter Cell Conviction which will be a prequel to the standard campaign consisting of 4 maps and some new characters. You will be able to play the co-op mode in split screen or over Xbox Live and as mentioned previously you will play as either American agent Archer or Russian agent Kestral.
Source: Gamasutra
PS: Please don’t shoot the messengers we would also like to play this game in February and didn’t want it to be delayed. Much the same as GT5 I guess.
Last Updated: January 14, 2010
easy
January 14, 2010 at 08:48
it could be that they are waiting for the new financial year to limit further losses in the current fy. i’m sure they will want to market sc:c heavily to drum up decent sales. no cheap exercise.
2010 is turning to be a down right shame with all these delays. mw2 really cocked up launch dates for quite a few highly anticipated games. :tongue:
WitWolfyZA
January 14, 2010 at 09:10
Dudes its all about the hype! these games have been polished loooooooong ago. Think about. UBI must be giggling their asses off thinking,
OH MAN! WE GOT THEM GOOD!!!! THIS WILL RAISE SALES BY AT LEAST 20%!!!
They’re just starving the gamers. But in all seriousness , when i saw the running demo i wasnt impressed at all a few weeks ago on Inside Xbox. I convinced myself those awesome cut scenes were in-game… How wrong i was…. I’ll rather wait for Alan Wake
easy
January 14, 2010 at 09:18
i don’t think the question is whether or not the game is finished, but more to do with financial damage limitation.
i doubt ubisoft are giggling at their $70m+ operating loss.
WitWolfyZA
January 14, 2010 at 10:49
Nah why keep debt high by not releasing a game, then to lower that amount outstanding by presumably releasing something “Spectacular”. Doesn’t make sense . And plus we all know MS paid a good amount of dough to UBI to keep it exclusive in the first place, cant see how this will effect their cash flow at all
DarthPenguin
January 14, 2010 at 09:26
I’ve seen Conviction running on a 360.. and yes.. those cutscenes are ingame. Not sure what you saw where they weren’t, but they certainly were. And the game isn’t finished, there were certain areas the guy showing the game couldn’t go to as the game would crash.. they are still working on the game.
Wesley@deltadisplay.co.za
January 14, 2010 at 10:45
Do yourself a favor and check the Conviction trailer buddy and then go and see the in game graphics , then we can argue again 😉
koldFU5iON
January 14, 2010 at 11:04
There’s a difference between a trailer and a gameplay demo. The trailer for SCC is CG, but the gameplay demo is ingame graphics
WitWolfyZA
January 15, 2010 at 08:39
My point exactly! Name me at least 5 games this generation that still use CG Trailers. Its insulting. As old as MGS 4 is it would still blow SP away in the graphic department. And they didn’t use no “CG trailers” to make it raise any eye brows. You see where i’m going with this?
koldFU5iON
January 14, 2010 at 11:03
The Awesome cut scene’s were in actual fact, in game I played the Splinter Cell Conviction demo at Rage last year on stage.
Geoff
January 14, 2010 at 11:30
and that’s when I *knew* I had to have it.
DarthPenguin
January 14, 2010 at 11:37
Thats where I saw it.. and where the game became one of my most anticipated games ever!
DieFrikkenator
January 14, 2010 at 10:14
Seriously, they might as well just leave SC. It will be impossible to build up hype because noone believes them when they give a date anymore… It’s repidly becoming the new duke nukem forever.
WitWolfyZA
January 14, 2010 at 10:49
Same goes for Remedy studios
ClericZA
January 14, 2010 at 11:37
This is a major disappointment for me. Was just at megarom the other day getting all hyped about SC:C. It’s my #1 anticipated game for the year. Guess a couple extra months won’t kill me though.
Nick
January 14, 2010 at 14:14
Right on time with the negative xbox 360 news once again. You guys are such big Sony fanbois
easy
January 14, 2010 at 14:20
*pot stirred* 😆
MaxiViper
January 14, 2010 at 17:07
Man that just gets me right in the heart, I have to go through 3 months of school before i can get this game now :face:
MaxiViper
January 14, 2010 at 17:09
correction – 2 months not 3. :face:
WitWolfyZA
January 15, 2010 at 08:40
Well if its due in April ill have to tell my GF to buy it for me for her birthday 😛
Maxiviper
January 15, 2010 at 17:37
Good plan :w00t:
V@mp
January 14, 2010 at 18:43
:cwy: :cwy: :cwy:
V@mp
January 14, 2010 at 18:44
Dammit :cwy:
Nick de Bruyne
January 14, 2010 at 20:20
I was just wondering about this. They posted a huge loss for this financial year, and it’s not one that they can fix. Is it possible that they pushed it through to their next financial year so that they can boost their numbers and make next year look a lot better, rather than having the sales from Conviction do nothing to aid their current predicament?
RSA-Ace
January 15, 2010 at 08:05
That is generally how it works. Also FYQ1 is in April for Japan so that might be the reason GT5 was also pushed back.
Nick de Bruyne
January 14, 2010 at 20:20
I was just wondering about this. They posted a huge loss for this financial year, and it’s not one that they cannot fix. Is it possible that they pushed it through to their next financial year so that they can boost their numbers and make next year look a lot better, rather than having the sales from Conviction do nothing to aid their current predicament?