Assassin’s Creed doubles launch sales as Ubisoft posts gains

Ubisoft has seen sales climb 65.7 per cent year-on-year thanks to a string of successful launches across various platforms.

Assassin’s Creed Origins is off to a strong start, selling twice as many units as its 2015 predecessor Syndicate did in its first 10 days.

Company-wide digital sales were up 69.1 per cent, and in Origins’ case accounted for 35 per cent of its total. That’s up from the 15 per cent of digital sales seen with Syndicate, and is very much in line with modern industry trends. For South Park: The Fractured But Whole, that digital figure rises to 50 per cent.

Back catalogue sales also climbed, growing 47.9 per cent.

Switch title Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle also did well, helping Nintendo’s console to a 19 per cent share of all game sales in its launch quarter, ahead of Xbox One on 20 per cent. For the last six months Switch accounted for 12 per cent of sales, with Xbox One on 21 per cent, PS4 36 per cent and PC 17 per cent.

“In addition to these new releases, players are engaging with a large amount of additional high-quality content which provides them with longer-term entertainment. This includes Blood Orchid, the recent major update to Rainbow Six Siege, and Ghost War, the highly-acclaimed PvP mode for Ghost Recon Wildlands,” co-founder and CEO Yves Guillemot said.

“And it doesn’t stop there: in the coming weeks we will notably release Resistance, a massive free update to The Division, and South Park: Phone Destroyer, a free-to-play mobile game.

"The quality of our new releases is the result of our effort to transform our model and make our business more profitable and recurring. Given longer development lead times, our talents can fully express their creative visions and therefore maximize the potential of our games.”