Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot was fairly pleased to report during today's investor's briefing that two of the company's biggest games of the past year have been flying both onto and off of store shelves at breakneck speeds. According to Guillemot, Assassin's Creed 2 has shipped nearly 9 million units during the fiscal year, while Splinter Cell: Conviction, which only just launched April 13, has hit 1.8 million in sales.
UBIsoft and Microsoft announced a $399.99 360 bundle which includes an Elite console, 250GB hard drive, two wireless controllers and a standard edition of Splinter Cell: Conviction. The package will be available on April 13th, 2010, the game's launch day.
This is purely speculative but after Ubisoft's financial report they released yesterday and comments from Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, could the delay of Splinter Cell: Conviction suggest that the publishing giant are reconsidering their stance with the now Xbox 360 exclusive game?
Xbox 360 and PC exclusive will now be released in Q1 2010.
Splinter Cell: Conviction screenshot
Ubisoft has announced that Xbox 360 and PC title Splinter Cell: Conviction has been delayed and will no longer be released in the publisher's third fiscal quarter (October 1 - December 31, 2009).
The publisher has stated the game will now be released during its fourth fiscal quarter, meaning a release date at some point between January 1, 2010 and March 31, 2010.
How about some mild platform controversy to sweeten the onset of another working week? Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction Lead Designer Steven Masters has told Kikizo that his team "could absolutely execute on PS3", and that the game's Xbox 360 console exclusivity is entirely a question of "business".
"Well that's purely a business decision. That's it." Masters observed with a chuckle when the topic came up in a recent interview.
Yesterday brought news of several game delays and there may be another one to add to the list. Retailer GameStop has changed the release date on the Splinter Cell: Conviction PC and Xbox 360 listings from October 20th 2009 to January 5th 2010.
Ubisoft's latest quarterly includes the company's CEO, Yves Guillemot, hyping "this Christmas" as the one to offer "one of the industry's most ambitious games line-ups which will include Assassin's Creed 2, James Cameron's Avatar, Splinter Cell Conviction, Rabbids Go Home and Red Steel 2."
When Ubisoft didn't show Splinter Cell: Conviction at its last event, people worried a little about how the game might be doing. Fear not — the game's doing great. So great, they say, that Ubisoft just decided it'd be better off releasing it as part of its "2009-2010" lineup instead of in this year's fiscal fourth quarter.
13