logo
'Assassin's Creed' no savior for struggling Ubisoft

'Assassin's Creed' no savior for struggling Ubisoft

Japan Today14-05-2025
'Assassin's Creed' came through with strong sales but could not keep Ubisoft from a net loss
By Kilian FICHOU
A bumper release for the latest "Assassin's Creed" instalment did not save French video games giant Ubisoft from falling back into the red in its 2024-25 financial year, the company said on Wednesday.
The company had won through to profitability in 2023-24 after a near half-billion-euro loss in the previous period.
But a string of disappointing releases undermined this year's performance, with a net loss of 159 million euros ($178 million) on revenues of 1.9 billion -- down 17.5 percent year-on-year.
Over the past 12 months, Ubisoft's would-be blockbuster "Star Wars Outlaws" fell short of sales expectations on release, while it cancelled multiplayer first-person shooter "XDefiant" for lack of players.
"This year has been a challenging one for Ubisoft, with mixed dynamics across our portfolio, amid intense industry competition," chief executive Yves Guillemot said in a statement.
Ubisoft's preferred performance indicator, so-called "net bookings" -- which excludes some deferred revenues -- also fell by more than 20 percent year-on-year, to 1.8 billion euros.
The group expects the measure to hold steady in the coming 2025-26 financial year, during which it will release a new "Prince of Persia" game, strategy title "Anno 117: Pax Romana" and mobile versions of shooters "Rainbow Six" and "The Division".
Disappointing shipments have been matched by a tumbling stock price.
But in recent weeks the publisher's biggest money-spinner has been as dependable as ever, with "Assassin's Creed Shadows" winning over more than three million players with its story of medieval Japanese intrigue since its March 20 release.
"Shadows" swiftly rose to become the second-best-selling game of the year so far in the United States, according to data from consultancy Circana.
Moving to address its business woes, Ubisoft said in late March that it would create a new subsidiary to manage its three top franchises: "Assassin's Creed", "Far Cry" and "Rainbow Six".
Around 3,000 of the group's 17,000 employees worldwide will work in the new unit, Guillemot has said.
It will not own the games' brands, instead paying royalties to the parent company to use them.
The subsidiary has been valued at more than four billion euros, or twice Ubisoft's current market capitalisation, after Chinese tech giant Tencent agreed to invest 1.16 billion in exchange for a stake of around 25 percent.
Spinning off the biggest-selling games "was the least committal of the available options without simply returning to shareholders empty-handed," said Martin Szumski, an analyst at Morningstar, ahead of the earnings report.
One activist fund with a minority stake in Ubisoft had tried to rally other investors to demand a change of course.
Leaving investors "underwhelmed", according to Szumski, the subsidiary plan has not kept the mothership's stock from eroding further in value, hit in part by fears over U.S. tariffs.
Since January, the shares have lost more than 12 percent, touching their lowest price in over a decade in April.
Ubisoft has promised details of more restructuring moves by the end of 2025 and aims to save a further 100 million euros over the coming two years as part of a cost-cutting drive launched in 2023.
The company on Wednesday also reported net debt of 885 million euros, down from 1.4 billion in September.
Ubisoft's restructuring means Tencent, which climbed aboard as an investor in 2018, will have a bigger say in the French firm -- although Guillemot insisted to French senators at a hearing last week that he will "retain control" over the new subsidiary.
Looking ahead, "if Ubisoft is unable to use the money Tencent invested in a meaningful way, it is certainly possible that Tencent pursues buying the firm outright" even in the face of fierce resistance from the founding Guillemot brothers, Szumski suggested.
Ubisoft's belt-tightening program has brought closures of several foreign studios and thousands of job cuts.
Worldwide, the company is replacing only one in three departing workers, Guillemot told the Senate.
© 2025 AFP
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Yamada ‘played it by ear' as he conducted Berlin Philharmonic
Yamada ‘played it by ear' as he conducted Berlin Philharmonic

Asahi Shimbun

time12 hours ago

  • Asahi Shimbun

Yamada ‘played it by ear' as he conducted Berlin Philharmonic

Japanese conductor Kazuki Yamada's improvisational skills guided him through one of the most high-profile guest performances of his conducting career. 'I played it by ear, just as I always do,' he said. 'I was excited by the way the orchestra transfigured.' In June, Yamada appeared on stage with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra for the first time and drew applause from the audience. Yamada, 46, shared his impressions of the fulfilling time he spent with one of the leading classical music orchestras in the world. CONDUCTING IS ABOUT 'CARRYING' 'The orchestra organizes 100 top-notch soloists, who are performing in the way they each prefer,' Yamada said. 'A swell arises, however, when they unite. They become mutually linked, both in music and in appearance. The better that things work out, the more wildly, and incredibly, the swell begins to grow.' He added: 'I was thinking about how I could add air into the harmony. Nobody there, apparently, had ever experienced an approach like that. They were, like, 'Oh, this guy is going to try something novel with us. OK, why don't we take him on?' They likely decided to deal with me in that way.' The Berlin Philharmonic was founded in 1882 by young musicians as a self-governing body. It went on to be a time-honored, prestigious orchestra, where famed composers Johannes Brahms and Antonin Dvorak conducted their own pieces and Herbert von Karajan built a golden age. Yamada is the 15th Japanese to have wielded the baton on the illustrious stage, where every aspiring conductor fancies taking a turn. Yamada took the rostrum during the Berlin Philharmonic's regular concert held from June 12 through 14. He told about the experience in a casual manner, as opposed to the way that Yutaka Sado talked passionately, and excitedly, about how he conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in 2011. Yamada chose to perform, instead of pieces of the German school, works by an Italian composer (Ottorino Respighi's 'Fontane di Roma'), a Japanese (Toru Takemitsu's 'I Hear the Water Dreaming') and a French artist (Camille Saint-Saens' Symphony No. 3, 'Organ Symphony'). In selecting these pieces, Yamada sought advice from Daishin Kashimoto, a close friend, who has served as first concertmaster with the Berlin Philharmonic since 2010. 'He encouraged me by saying, 'Why don't you try a French piece?'' Yamada said. 'I found that reassuring. After all, he is the only person that fully knows both me and the orchestra.' For reasons of scheduling, Kashimoto was unable to appear on stage with Yamada, who, however, said he didn't mind. 'I think it worked out all right in the end,' Yamada said. 'I am afraid I would have been reliant on him if he had been there. And that could also have been counterproductive if that were to make the others believe that he and I, fellow Japanese, were helping each other. Well, to tell the truth, however, I would have wanted him to be in the audience.' Yamada said that while he was performing on stage, he recalled an episode he had been told about by the late Hiroyuki Iwaki (1932-2006), who also previously served as music director of the Philharmonic Chorus of Tokyo and conducted the Berlin Philharmonic himself. In Yamada's words, Iwaki quoted Karajan as often saying, when the native of Austria was artistic director with the Berlin Philharmonic, that conducting is not about 'driving,' but is about 'carrying.' Yamada said he understood for the first time what that description meant. 'I realized that I am not there to control,' he said. 'Perhaps, in a sense, an orchestra is not so much like a car as it is like a horse. The horse has a strong willpower itself. I have to respect that when I am astride it. I am there to show where we should be going, but I am not there to force it.' Yamada continued: 'We are on totally equal terms, so I am always face to face with all the 100. I realized that this sense, which says this orchestra would be all right even without the conductor's cues, represents, more than anything else, the tradition that Karajan nurtured.'

Games giant Ubisoft bets on reorganisation to dispel blues
Games giant Ubisoft bets on reorganisation to dispel blues

Japan Today

time21 hours ago

  • Japan Today

Games giant Ubisoft bets on reorganisation to dispel blues

Ubisoft is behind the popular 'Assassin's Creed' series of video games Struggling French video games giant Ubisoft shed light on a far-reaching reorganisation of its business this week, as it reported disappointing sales in April-June. The internal rejig into a slew of autonomous units aims for "a more agile and focused organisation while ensuring necessary long-term stability and creative vision", chief executive Yves Guillemot said in a statement. Ubisoft reported 311 million euros ($364 million) of sales in the first quarter of its 2025-26 financial year, a fall of 3.9 percent compared with the same period last year, largely driven by technical problems with shooter game "Rainbow Six Siege". Acknowledging "mixed results", Guillemot nevertheless hailed the release of "Assassin's Creed Shadows". The latest instalment in the money-spinning franchise "delivered on its expectations, with now more than five million unique players since launch," he said in a statement. Sales were slightly less impacted, losing 2.9 percent, when measured using Ubisoft's own preferred indicator of "net bookings", which excludes some deferred revenues. The company forecast net bookings of around 450 million euros in its second financial quarter, boosted by new partnerships and revenue from TV series. For the full financial year, it confirmed objectives including stable year-on-year net bookings and "approximately break-even" operating profit. Ubisoft made a net loss of 159 million euros in 2024-25 and is in the midst of a cost-cutting plan that has seen it shut several studios outside France and slash over 2,000 jobs. Its woes reflect broader, global headwinds for the video games industry over the past two years. Guillemot -- a member of the founding family that has run Ubisoft for decades -- also said the company had made "meaningful progress" on the plan to split its activities among several "creative houses", each responsible for a different slate of games. Ubisoft has not gone into detail about the functioning of the new units or how its remaining franchises will be divided among them, promising further information about the reorganisation by October. In an email to staff last week seen by AFP, Guillemot had said the units would be "autonomous" and "completely responsible for their business objectives". Pressured to change by a string of disappointing releases and a slumping stock price, Ubisoft created the first such subsidiary earlier this year in a billion-euro deal with heavyweight Chinese investor Tencent. The 3,000-strong unit will control Ubisoft's biggest franchises in "Assassin's Creed", "Rainbow Six" and "Far Cry". Ubisoft said last week that the subsidiary will be run by the CEO's son Charlie Guillemot alongside Christophe Derennes, a veteran chief of the company's major development studio in Montreal. "Christophe, Charlie and their teams will benefit from advice and expertise from Tencent," one of China's largest gaming and internet firms, Yves Guillemot said in his email to staff. Looking ahead, Ubisoft plans to release in March a remake of "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time", one of its most popular titles from two decades ago. Strategy series "Anno" will get a new episode set in ancient Rome while the company is also cooking up mobile versions of "Rainbow Six" and fellow shooter "The Division". It warned in May however that several unannounced major titles were being delayed. Such news has contributed to a 28-percent slump in Ubisoft's stock price since January. Ubisoft's image has also been harmed by a high-profile case in which three former executives were sentenced this month for enabling a culture of sexual and psychological harassment. © 2025 AFP

Tariffs and conflicts loom large over Merz and Macron's working dinner
Tariffs and conflicts loom large over Merz and Macron's working dinner

Japan Today

timea day ago

  • Japan Today

Tariffs and conflicts loom large over Merz and Macron's working dinner

FILE PHOTO: French President Emmanuel Macron speaks with Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz, at a hotel prior to an E3 meeting on the sidelines of the NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands, June 24, 2025. Kin Cheung/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo By Rachel More (Reuters) -German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will host French President Emmanuel Macron for talks over dinner in Berlin on Wednesday, with Europe's battle to soften incoming U.S. tariffs and support for Ukraine expected to top a packed agenda. The meeting, taking place at Villa Borsig in the German capital's leafy outskirts, brings together the leaders of Europe's two largest economies as trade negotiations approach President Donald Trump's August 1 deadline. "Of course, the question of how we react to the threat of tariffs on August 1 is a central focus, and also the security situation in Ukraine," Merz's chief of staff, Thorsten Frei, told the ZDF broadcaster. "The fact that the agenda is so full shows that the relationship between Germany and France is not only good but extremely important," Frei said, adding that a number of other topics would be discussed. Conservative Merz has courted a more unified front with France on a range of issues, from European defence to diplomacy with Iran, and criticised his predecessor Olaf Scholz for neglecting Germany's relations with its neighbour. However, sticking points remain. Germany's signature was missing from a letter signed by France and 27 other Western countries calling on Israel to immediately end the war. Merz has been increasingly critical of Israel but his chief of staff said the letter was not clear enough that Hamas's October 7, 2023 attacks had triggered the conflict. Merz and Macron are also expected to discuss the FCAS Franco-German-Spanish fighter jet project, whose future has been called into question amid a growing feud with Europe's Airbus over control of the program. © (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2025.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store