Ubisoft has finally confirmed the reason for its multiple game delays and cancellations over the past few years. During its investor conference for the third quarter of 2022-23, held early Friday, CEO Yves Guillemot claimed the move was necessary because the company was producing too many titles at once. Just last month, Ubisoft canceled three unannounced projects to counteract lost sales and bolster its long-term growth. Guillemot also assured investors that Ubisoft will attend the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) this summer if there is one this year. “If E3 happens, we’ll be there and we’ll have a lot of things to show,” he said (via VGC).
“We’ve canceled a couple of games because we had to make room for other games that are in development at the company and that really helps all the other games that are progressing well.” Guillemot said in call investors (above NME). “Now we believe we have the right number of games, knowing that we will be launching many games in FY24 that will also make room for the other games that are on the way at the company.” Ubisoft until now delayed his naval title skull bones for the sixth time, hoping to gather feedback from ongoing technical tests and ensure a polished experience at launch. The game, which was previously scheduled for March 9, will now be released in the company’s next fiscal year, which falls between April 2023 and March 2024.
Guillemot also addressed how the cancellations will benefit post-launch content for major game launches in the future. Given that the development teams were thinly spread across multiple projects, eliminating some of the smaller/poorly performing ones helps them save time and resources. These developers can then be moved to help with the mainline games. “We know that a lot of these games will also have post-launch content, and that takes a certain amount of teams and talent to actually create that content,” Guillemot said.
The way Ubisoft expressed its commitment to this year’s E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) gave the impression that the fair is unlikely to take place this year. While E3 organizers have said they will host an in-person event this year, there are doubts about the conference being the big three – Sony, XboxAnd Nintendo – Are reportedly not participating the summertime video game extravaganza. Xbox CEO Phil Spencer previously confirmed that it will be holding its own showcase around the same time as E3, for convenience’ sake. In the meantime, PlayStation retired from E3 in 2019 and continued with his own Game Status and other showcases – which sometimes coincided with those of Geoff Keighley Summer Game Festival. If any, Keighley’s The all-digital event proved that it is entirely feasible for a publisher to market their games without a physical presence and paying large sums for dedicated booths.
However, a new report from The edge suggests that E3 2023 is actually taking place, despite the news that major publishers are pulling out. “E3 is well underway and we’re pleased with the progress and engagement from the community,” said Lance Fensterman, President of ReedPop (organizers of E3) in a prepared statement. “As we have confirmed exhibitors, we look forward to sharing more as details are cemented and attendees create their own detailed plans.” It’s unclear what titles Ubisoft has in store for us at E3, but we can assume so Assassin’s Creed Mirage to be one of them.
