‘Division 2 is the industry’s biggest hit since the beginning of the year’
Ubisoft has been having a pretty good past few years. Not only did they invest time and money into older games likeRainbow Six SiegeandFor Honor, but they also backed off the whole “annualAssassin’s Creed” thing this year, ridingOdysseyinto 2019 (the last DLC for it was released just this week). And even if theydidn’t,OriginsandOdysseyaren’t a bad 2017 and 2018 respective duo.
So how well are they doing? Ubisoft is reporting “higher than expected” performance based on their most recent fiscal report this week, due in part to the continued success ofOdysseyandSiege. Ubisoft says that the former has had a “very sharp increase in daily engagement, PRI and sellthrough compared withAssassin’s Creed Originsin the first quarter,” which was already a success.
As forSiege, the publisher notes that it’s “one of the industry’s top ten best-selling titles over the last five years,” with engagement up “year after year,” which led to a deal with Neowiz to bring the game to PC bangs (LAN cafes) in South Korea. Ubisoft also confirms thatThe Division 2is “the industry’s biggest hit since the beginning of the year (it clarifies this stat as “units sold between January and June 2019, citing the NPD, GSD, Famitsu, and others as sources),” and things are looking good forGhost Recon: Breakpoint,Watch Dogs: Legion, andRoller Champions, which all had their own mostly investor-pleasing milestones at E3 (“best sentiment score,” “65 awards and nominations,” and “most-streamed game at E3” respectively).
So where is Ubisoft going from here? Well they’re going to continue to support their live service games likeSiege, and move on to new ones soon enough. The aforementionedBreakpointwill likely take over for the more polarizingWildlands,Just Dance 2020is poised to make a splash again (and is even getting a Wii release), and 2020 will bringGods & Monsters,Roller Champions,Rainbow Six Quarantine(that zombie game), andWatch Dogs: Legioninto the forefront.
Everything on that list outside of the unprovenRoller Championssounds good on paper, and as long as Ubisoft keeps older games alive and paces themselves with storied franchises, they’ll likely continue down this positive path.
