On October 24, 2019, Ubisoft announced production for tactical co-op shooter Rainbow Six Quarantine has been delayed until the 2020/2021 fiscal year, along with two other titles.
Due to a sharp downward decline in the revenue expected from Ghost Recon Breakpoint and The Division 2, Ubisoft has revised downwards its financial targets for fiscal year 2019-20. An initial projection at the start of the year estimated €2,185 million in net bookings with an operating income of around €480 million. A statement to press announced the company’s new expected income for the year at approximately €1,450 million and an operating income of between €20 million and €50 million.
Increasing development time and delaying the production of Rainbow Six Quarantine, Gods & Monsters, and Watch Dogs Legion allows Ubisoft to expect a strong lineup in the next fiscal year. With the planned release of five AAA games, the company is now targeting net bookings of approximately €2,600 million and a non-IFRS operating income of €600 million for 2020-21.
In the statement to press, Yves Guillemot, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, identified three main reasons behind Ubisoft’s underperformance this year, including the difficulty generating interest for a sequel to a live multiplayer game when prior iterations benefited from years of optimization. “Consequently, we need to make sure there is more time between each iteration of Live games,” he said. In addition, Guillemot stated gameplay innovations must be perfectly implemented to offer an optimal experience. “This has not yet been sufficiently the case with Ghost Recon Breakpoint,” he declared, following up by stating that Ghost Recon Breakpoint “did not come in with enough differentiation factors,” preventing the game’s intrinsic qualities from standing out.
“We are tackling these issues head-on and already are implementing significant changes to our production processes. We are confident in our capacity to adapt and evolve, as we have done successfully many times in the past,” Guillemot concluded. “In this overall context, we have decided to postpone the releases of Gods & Monsters, Rainbow Six Quarantine, and Watch Dogs Legion until 2020-21. While each of these games already has a strong identity and high potential, we want our teams to have more development time to ensure that their respective innovations are perfectly implemented so as to deliver optimal experiences for players”
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