Nov 8, 2007
Yves Guillemot, CEO of Paris, France-based Ubisoft, delivered a fascinating presentation during BMO Capital Markets' Annual Interactive Entertainment Conference in New York City on Tuesday.
Guillemot seemed particularly enthusiastic about Nintendo's success in both the handheld and home console markets.
"[Nintendo's mass market strategy] is very profitable for Nintendo, and very profitable for all third-party publishers," he said. "...Because [the strategy] is working, we create more product [for Nintendo platforms] and this will actually bring more people into the industry. The Wii is going to continue to do extremely well with no limit to growth."
Guillemot said Ubisoft currently has 400-500 people who are dedicated to the Wii platform right now, and believes that next year, Ubisoft will have "Nintendo-like quality" on the Wii.
He also praised the DS for helping expand Ubisoft's business as well as the industry worldwide. CFO Alain Martinez added that DS games, with their relatively low development costs, achieve profitability at around 100,000 units sold, while a next-gen game for PS3 or Xbox 360 needs to sell around 1.3 million.
Guillemot also said that Xbox 360 was performing very well, with much of its success due to the execution of Xbox Live and its features.
Sony's machine wasn't forgotten, as he called the PS3 a "very affordable machine" now that the price has dropped to $499, a price tag that will be "good for this year." With its Blu-ray capabilities, Guillemot claimed the console is "putting our industry in a new environment where we'll be able to have more cinematics and movie-like games," and will in turn help close the gap between games and movies.
