Ubisoft Entertainment SA

Company Overview

Ubisoft Entertainment SA

Ubisoft headquarters in France
Type	Public
Industry	Video Games
Founded	28 March 1986; 37 Years Ago
Founders	Christian Guillemot Claude Guillemot Gérard Guillemot Michel Guillemot Yves Guillemot
Headquarters	Saint-Mandé, France
Key people	Yves Guillemot (Chairman, CEO) Frédérick Duguet (CFO)
Revenue	€1,814.3 million (2023)
Operating income	€-487.4 million (2023)
Net income	€-494.2 million (2023)
Total assets	€4,959.2 million (2023)
Total equity	€1,807.1 million (2023)
Number of employees	20,665 (2022)
Website	https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/

Description

Ubisoft Entertainment SA was founded by the five Guillemot brothers in 1986 in Saint-Mandé, France, to create and supply video games worldwide. Ubisoft produce and publish video games for consoles, PC, smartphones, and tablets in both physical and digital formats in Europe, North America, and internationally. Notable game franchises include, Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Tom Clancy's, Watch Dogs, Prince of Persia, For Honor, Just Dance, and Rayman.

The company also has a presence in the Movies and Entertainment industry through its Ubisoft Film & Television division, which has the mission "to bring Ubisoft’s award-winning games into new areas of entertainment and to create original stories set in the world, culture and community of gaming". The division has a pipeline of projects, including the films “Just Dance” (Screen Gems), the live-action “Assassin’s Creed” (Netflix) series, the current “Mythic Quest” (Apple TV+) series and “Rabbids Invasion” (season 4 on Netflix).

Ubisoft Entertainment SA has a strategic partnership with Tencent and Playcrab; and collaboration with Disney and Lucasfilm Games.

Financials

Forecast

Investment Thesis - many new AAA games (strong lineup 2024), potential start of new lucrative franchises / IPs, appointed new independent board members with large successful track records to strengthen their corporate governance, risks around execution, which may significantly dampen upside potential of new franchises, which has been seen with e.g., Redfall, which was released by Bethesda earlier this year.

Upcoming Titles

	Title	Platform(s)
F1Q	For Honor: Year 7 - Season 2	PC, Console
	Mighty Quest Rogue Palace	Mobile (Netflix)
	Riders Republic: Season 7	PC/Console/Cloud
	Rocksmith+	Mobile
	Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege: Year 8 - Season 2	PC/Console/Cloud
	The Crew 2: Season 8 - Episode 2	PC/Console/Cloud
	Tom Clancy's The Division 2: Year 5 - Season 1	PC/Console/Cloud
	Trackmania Next	Console
FY24	Assassin's Creed: Mirage	PC/Console/Cloud
	Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora	PC/Console/Cloud
	Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Mobile	Mobile
	Tom Clancy's The Division Resurgence	Mobile
	The Crew Motorfest	PC/Console/Cloud
	Skull and Bones	PC/Console/Cloud
	XDefiant	PC/Console/Cloud
	"Another large game"	TBA

Emphasised (bold) is what is viewed as the 5 most highly-anticipated titles on Ubisoft's FY24 release slate.

Overall, for the FY24 slate Ubisoft have Assassin’s Creed Mirage (AAA but smaller than usual), Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (AAA), Skull and Bones (AAA), The Crew Motorfest (AAA), Prince of Persia The Lost Crown, Just Dance 24, Rainbow Six Mobile, The Division Resurgence (mobile) and XDefiant (mobile). Star Wars Outlaws (AAA) is expected to release in FY25 and there remains “another large game” as well that has yet to be announced.

Reactions to the trailers of Ubisoft's highly-anticipated releases

Gamer and critic commentary (Sourced from Reddit, Twitter, Youtube, IGN, and other sites)

Assassin’s Creed Mirage

Pros:

• High praise for the return to the original style of the Assassin’s Creed games, applauding the increased emphasis on stealth elements in the gameplay.

• The story has garnered lots of enthusiasm - almost no negative feedback.

• The game is considered visually impressive.

Cons:

• Many gamers pointed to the character models not looking very up-to-date, as though they come from an earlier generation of games.

• Negative feedback around the parkour system and seems to be taken directly from Assassin’s Creed Valhalla - fans hoped for a parkour system similar to that of Assassin's Creed Unity

• Some general sentiment that not enough was shown in the trailers in terms of world size, combat, and game style.

Overall:

There is a fair bit of excitement about this game and no real red flags in the commentary seen.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

Pros:

• Comments on the gameplay were mostly positive.

• Gamers and critics view the world as beautiful and well-realised.

• Gamers like the fact that there is an option for two-player co-op.

Cons:

• Plenty of gamers and critics pointed to the similarity to the Far Cry series. While in some cases this was a good thing (the combat system in Far Cry is well-liked), it has raised lots of familiar commentary about Ubisoft’s games all being too similar to each other.

• Some criticism about the quality of how the characters look - although these comments also pointed to the fact that there is still time before the December release date for more polish.

Overall:

It was much harder to find commentary from gamers on this gameplay trailer than for Mirage or Star Wars Outlaws - this is a movie not a video game franchise for now. But where we did find commentary it was a mixture of praise for the world created and complaints that it is a “reskinned Far Cry”