Ubisoft wants to eat most of the next-gen cake
by Nick Doerr 
{ Jul 21st 2006 at 4:30PM }
Ubisoft was third largest publisher of games in Europe last year. Fifth in the US. CEO Yves Guillemot has decided that being number two in Europe would be keen, so he's decided to expand. He's already aquired Reflections, makers of the Driver series. Assassin's Creed is hotly anticipated. Guillemot's secret to market semi-domination? "I think it's our investment in the next-gen consoles. We invest more in the next-gen consoles than our competitors so we will create better quality games." A moderately sound assumption.What does Ubisoft want to create? RPG's, of course. The best kind of game, right? ...Right? So what was the reason for purchasing Microsoft Game Studio's sports section, and for EA buying a fifth of Ubisoft's stocks? No real big sports titles are being announced, but the role-playing world is on the mind of Ubisoft. Guillemot says: "the RPG segment is really very close to the action-adventure segment where we are, so we think we can get in there quite quickly." Some may disagree, depending on the type of RPG created. What does everyone think? Can Ubisoft really take a foot in the door of RPG-land, with Squeenix taking up most room and Atlus covering the niche titles? Nippon-Ichi has made a dent, but where could Ubisoft fit in?
