Ubisoft just announced its financial results for the first half of the fiscal year 2023-2024, related to the period between April and September 2023.
The company boasts "robust activity" in the period, with 94 million unique active players, slightly up year-on-year, while average monthly active users were 36 million, slightly down year-on-year.
We hear that the second quarter of the fiscal year (between July and September) was "much stronger than expected" thanks to the overperformance of back-catalog titles and its new games.
Specifically, Assassin's Creed Mirage and The Crew: Motorfest saw strong performance, even breaking records for the latter.
- Assassin’s Creed Mirage: Solid launch with week 1 number of players in line with Assassin’s Creed Origins and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
- The Crew Motorfest: Strong player reception with franchise record unit sell through, consumer spending and season pass adoption rate on the opening week.
CFO Frederick Duguet also added during the following conference call that Assassin’s Creed Mirage is currently performing in line with Ubisoft's expectations.
You can purchase a copy of Assassin's Creed Mirage or The Crew: Motorfest on Amazon.
Here's what the company said about its back catalog titles released in previous fiscal years.
- Rainbow Six Siege: Remarkable performance with high double digit net bookings growth, continued strong activity on the back of the Year 8 Season 3 release and solid acquisition leading to around 50% net bookings growth in the first half.
- Assassin’s Creed: Sustained performance of Assassin’s Creed back-catalog on the back of the Assassin’s Creed Mirage launch.
- The Crew 2: Exceptional engagement with a record month in terms of MAUs contributing to record franchise quarter activity.
As usual, the press release included a comment by CEO Yves Guillemot, who praised the performance of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, and The Crew Motorfest.
He also talked about the agreement that assigns to Ubisoft the streaming rights of Activision Blizzard's games, which paved the way to Microsoft's acquisition of the massive publisher.
Ubisoft delivered an excellent second quarter, well above our expectations. Activity was mostly driven by the performance of our back-catalog, thanks in particular to the remarkable growth of Rainbow Six Siege, in an overall competitive environment for first-person shooter games. I want to pay tribute to the exceptional level of commitment from our teams, who have done amazing work on this game to deliver top quality content across platforms. The signing of new partnerships also contributed to the overall quarter performance, confirming once again that Ubisoft is one of the most sought-after partners in the industry, with highly recognized brands and assets.
We are also pleased with the sales momentum demonstrated by our two new releases, which mark the successful return of Ubisoft’s IPs among the major games launches of the industry. The Assassin’s Creed Mirage and The Crew Motorfest teams, respectively led by Ubisoft Bordeaux and Ivory Tower, have done a wonderful job to prepare the release of these new opuses, and the response from the community and fans has been fantastic.
October saw the finalization of a major agreement with Activision Blizzard, which will grant Ubisoft the perpetual streaming rights for Call of Duty and all other existing Activision Blizzard Console and PC titles as well as those releasing over the next 15 years. The cloud gaming market has a strong potential, and Ubisoft can play a leading role in its realization. This deal will enable us to deliver even more experiences to more players across the world than ever before, one of the cornerstones of our strategy.
Looking ahead, the current positive momentum builds confidence for the rest of the year as well as for next fiscal year. We are excited to bring our future lineup to players, and to deliver on our strategy and continue reaching larger audiences and building an increasingly recurring business thanks to major brands and Live services.
We also learn that the mysterious unannounced "Large Game" which has been teased for a while and was slated for a Q4 release, has been delayed to the next fiscal year (between April 2024 and March 2025) to "maximize its value creation."
On the other hand, the much-delayed Skull and Bones is confirmed for a Q4 release, between January and March 2023.
If you'd like to compare with historical data, you can check out Ubisoft's financial results for the first quarter of the fiscal year, published in July.
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