Splinter Cell Delayed After Poor Year for Ubisoft

By Matthew Dykstra

Ubisoft announced a re-evaluation of their plans for 2010 today after sales reports showed they would miss their goal by more than 20 million, adding that Splinter Cell Conviction will be delayed into April and a new Assassin’s Creed will be released by end of the year.

The major change comes after the dissipointing sales of games like James Cameron’s Avatar and several DS games as well as a forseen shrink in the casual market throughout 2010. While Assassin’s Creed II topped sales charts last November, Ubisoft Exective Director Yves Guillemot is concerned that the casual market may not be as lucrative as everyone thinks.

“Despite a number of highly successful titles, such as Assassin’s Creed 2 – which is expected to reach 9 million sell-in units by the end of March 2010 – and Just Dance – our great Wii success during the holiday season – Ubisoft has not met its financial targets,” Guillemot said. “The considerable contraction in the DS market during the year particularly affected Ubisoft, leading to a €160 million, or almost 50%, year-on-year drop in the Company’s casual segment sales.”

“We intend to continue to refocus our development resources on our major franchises and on the Xbox360 and PS3, the two consoles that are expected to see sales growth in games for gamers in 2010.”

So the official word is that 2010 will see console versions of Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia and Assassin’s Creed but the when is up in the air. We’ll know more when Ubisoft releases their official sales figures for the third quarter of 2009-10 in February.