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Ubisoft's Ghost Recon: Wildlands Is The 'Biggest Hit' Of The Year So Far
Ubisoft reported its financial earnings for the first quarter of its fiscal year, which ended on June 30. The company touts a continued strong performance with increased sales, particularly with digital and back catalog titles, and that Ghost Recon: Wildlands is its biggest success during this period.
The quarter's sales were 45.2 percent higher in comparison to the same period last year, coming in at €202.1 million – a larger figure than Ubisoft projected. 80.4 percent of those sales come from digital revenue, which saw an increase of 55 percent, bringing in a revenue of €162.4 million. As for back catalog games, which are titles that released previous to this quarter, they made up 94.3 percent of total sales, higher than last year's 91.1 percent. Revenue for back catalog games for this period was totaled at €190.4 million.
In particular, Ubisoft announced during the earnings call that Ghost Recon: Wildlands has been the biggest video game hit of the year thus far, when combining its physical and digital sales on all platforms in North America, Europe, Australia, and Japan for this quarter. Ubisoft states that Ghost Recon: Wildlands is "the biggest selling title for the industry for the first six months of 2017."
Ubisoft says that it projects strong sales particularly for titles such as Assassin's Creed: Origins and Far Cry 5.
[Source: Ubisoft]
Our Take
Ubisoft had a strong first quarter with digital and back catalog sales, and the future looks bright. E3 proved to be successful for the company with announcements of both new IPs (Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, Skull & Bones) and sequels to some of its biggest franchises (Far Cry and Assassin's Creed). Ubisoft described its E3 performance as having a "show-stopping line-up." Although Vivendi was not mentioned during the call, the threat of a takeover is still a looming issue with the Guillemot family raising its stakes.
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