Ubisoft blames DS for 50 percent drop in Q1 09 sales
Dual screen is credit crunched
You know times are hard when people aren't buying DS games, but that was one of the reasons French publisher Ubisoft employed when explaining a 50 percent year-on-year drop in sales for the period 1 April to 30 June 2009.
During its Q1, the company's sales were €83 million, compared to €169 million for Q1 2008-09. This compared to a prediction of around €95 million given three months ago.
Yves Guillemot, Ubisoft's CEO, stated:
"We are currently experiencing a very sharp slowdown in our sales for Nintendo DS as well as sales of back-catalog titles, in the context of a market that is tougher than anticipated. This will have a significant impact on our first-half showing."
"Against this backdrop, the solid performance of our Wii titles combined with the successful launches of Anno and Call of Juarez are points of satisfaction and demonstrate that good products are continuing to sell well."
Back-catalog sales of PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 games were also down, while poorer-than-anticipated market conditions means Ubisoft will push the releases of console games Splinter Cell Conviction and Red Steel 2 back into its fourth quarter and Ghost Recon and I am Alive into the 2010-11 financial year.
DS games that will be released during the remainder of the year include movie tie-in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, as well as more casual titles in the Imagine series.
A sequel for Assassin's Creed - titled Assassin's Creed Discovery - is also due for DS in November, amongside the PSP game Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines.
