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| Game General News // Games: 10 Questions, UBISOFT boss Yves Guillemot talks |
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10 Questions, Ubi boss Yves Guillemot talks
about his gaming habits, Michel Ancel's "several unannounced projects,"
Jade Raymond's next project and Ubi's next wave of Wii and DS games.
Following EA's chief executive John Riccitiello,
the second installment in our 10 Questions series features Ubisoft CEO
Yves Guillemot. We compiled your best questions, passed them on to
Ubisoft and Mr. Guillemot did us the favor of answering them.
Thanks for your participation and please enjoy the Q&A below. Also
please stay tuned for our formal announcement of the next candidate,
which we can confirm now is going to be Microsoft's Shane Kim.
1. What attracted you to video games from a personal standpoint and
business standpoint? Did you have any favorites in the early days of
Atari or before?What attracted me and still attracts me is that this business is all
about creation. When I started I was quite young, and developers and I
felt that we were at the beginning of something big, and that
everything was possible. From a business standpoint, participating in
the birth of a new media and a new industry is one of the most
thrilling things you can experience; it seemed there was no limit to
the growth potential of this new business.
In the early years, I loved to play games like Commando or Ghosts 'n Goblins, as well as other Japanese arcade games.
2. What are your thoughts on industry consolidation? With Activision
merging with Vivendi/Blizzard and EA buying the likes of
BioWare/Pandemic and potentially Take-Two, how do you see the future of
the games industry and where does Ubisoft fit into that?
Competing against bigger companies pushes us to grow faster. The key to
success is the teams' ability to create very high quality experiences.
There's no evidence that the biggest companies release more quality
titles.
Ubisoft will focus on doing everything in order to internally leverage
even more creativity and energy, and to find ways to grow the gaming
universes to other entertainment fields such as books and movies. The
future of the games industry is bright, both because of the
manufacturers who develop extremely high performing machines with
fantastic artistic capacities and because of the increasing community
of gamers willing to buy accessible but quality titles.
In this context, Ubisoft is very well positioned because our strategy
of proprietary brands enables our sustained investment in creation.
3. Ubisoft promised their 3rd party offerings on the Wii and DS
would soon rival Nintendo's 1st party titles. Yet, all they've
continued to do, is to port last-gen titles on the Wii and release dog
game after dog game on the DS. So, when is this flood of quality
supposed to start?
We are very happy with games such as Rayman Raving Rabbids and My Word Coach and so are players. In another genre, Brothers in Arms on DS is one of the very few good FPS games on this console. The Petz
games that you are mentioning have a different audience, which may not
consist of hard core gamers but we believe that is not a reason to
exclude them from the gaming universe.
I can tell you that our next generation of games for the Wii and DS are
currently in development and I believe you will love them.
4. When can we expect the next proper Rayman platformer, and what is Michel Ancel working on?
Michel Ancel is working on several unannounced projects, and I'm afraid
I cannot tell you more at this stage. You can expect to hear more from
Ubisoft about these projects soon.
5. Given the recent glut of sequels and spin offs (how many Prince of Persia
games are there?) do you believe that the trend of the close to yearly
sequel is helping or hurting the industry? And what is your company
doing to perpetuate your view?
There is no simple answer to that question. What prevails for us is
that a game shouldn't be released until it has gotten the final polish
in order to make sure it meets the high quality standards our gamers
expect. We do not hesitate to give more time to a team if additional
development is required to reach the expected quality. But making a
good game is not always a question of time. The key is having a
motivated and skilled team as well as cutting-edge technology. The
games industry regularly demonstrates that a sequel can be a drastic
improvement compared to the previous installment.
6. What is it like being the head of a European company in an overwhelmingly Japanese and American business?
Well, the head office happens to be in France but we have much more
employees in the rest of the world than in France. We even employ more
people in North America than in Europe, and I believe the identity of a
company is defined by its teams. Ubisoft is a truly international
company. Of course my own culture influences Ubisoft, but this is only
one of all the ingredients in that giant blender.
7. Have you considered breaking off some IPs (Splinter Cell for example) into experimental MMOs?
[Ubisoft actually announced recently that they're considering a Tom Clancy MMO – Ed.]
It might come as a surprise, but we positioned ourselves very early on
the MMO segment, and probably too early since these initiatives were
not successful. It is a very interesting segment, and we have learned a
lot from our previous experiences, so we'll come back. The only
announced project matching your precise question is Heroes of Might and Magic Kingdoms, which will very soon bring the Heroes of Might and Magic IP and its strategic gameplay to a massively online persistent universe.
8. How do you feel about the criticism Assassin's Creed
received for being too repetitive? It seemed to be a really polarizing
game -- some loved it, some didn't. And how do you feel about the
attention that Jade Raymond received leading up to launch? Is she still
going to work on the sequel?
We have never received as many compliments from gamers as we did for Assassin's Creed.
Some might dislike certain aspects of the game, but it undoubtedly
brought a radically fresh and innovative take to the adventure genre.
This game shows that our industry has reached a new level, and I'm not
really surprised that it gets polarized critics, just as a strong movie
would. As you know, such a success with a totally new IP which took so
many risks in order to redefine the genre is unprecedented.
Jade Raymond and Patrice Desilets and the entire Assassin's Creed development team did an excellent job to create the game.
I view Jade as a very skilled and creative producer, the success of Assassin's Creed
leaves no doubt about that and the attention she received from the
media is due to the anticipation, buzz and quality of the game. She's
currently working on a new project but it's a little too early to share
more about it.
9. How does Ubisoft feel about No More Heroes selling how it
did with virtually no support from Ubisoft's marketing department, and
will Ubisoft potentially pursue more niche titles on Wii since they
apparently can sell decently?
We loved No More Heroes from the start, and our U.S. team
did a great job of promoting it; such performance would not have been
possible without that support. We have many ways of promoting a
product, depending on the genre and the targeted audience and TV ads
are not always the best choice.
10. How many hours a week do you play games, and what are some of
your favorite games from the current generation (and they don't have to
be all Ubisoft titles)?
I play several hours a week, both professionally and in my leisure time with my kids. Currently I'm playing Mario Galaxy, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Assassin's Creed and Guitar Hero III.
Posted on Friday, March 28 @ 06:10:18 EST by admin |
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