The games industry is seeing a sudden and massive boom in acquisitions, with major players like Sony, Microsoft, EA, Take-Two Interactive, Tencent, and many other making moves and acquiring studios at a startling rate. Just the last couple of months have seen some massive deals, with Xbox’s looming acquisition of Activision Blizzard in particular having shaken the industry.
Since that aforementioned acquisition, many have wondered whether other major third party publishers are also now going to be acquired by bigger companies, and one name that has come up frequently in those conversations is Ubisoft, which, like Activision Blizzard, has been enduring its fair share of issues and bad press over the last couple of years (if we’re being mild about it). But what does Ubisoft itself have to say about this?
During the company’s recent quarterly investors call, CEO Yves Guillemot was asked about the top of acquisitions about where Ubisoft stood on it, and in response he said that though Ubisoft can remain independent if it wished to thanks to its IP, assets, workforce, and more, if an acquisition offer were indeed to come in, the company would be open to reviewing that offer.
“We have always taken decisions in the interest of our stakeholders, which are our employees, players and shareholders,” Guillemot said (via VGC). “Ubisoft can remain independent: we have the talent, the financial scale, and a large portfolio of original IPs. Having said that, if there were an offer to buy us, the board of directors would of course review it in the interest of all stakeholders.”
Later on, Guillemot added: “We have high-value assets, we have the scale to remain independent and create very meaningful value in the future, because we have scale in terms of our workforce, engineering, technology, IPs and engaged communities.
“That’s why we are able to serve so many platforms today with such high-quality content… Of course we won’t speculate any more on any potential interest in buying Ubisoft.”
Activision Blizzard’s public troubles over the last year were significant factor in why the company was willing to be acquired, and, of course, had an impact on its price as well, and Ubisoft isn’t in an entirely different situation on that front. In an industry that seems to be embroiled in an acquisitions arms race, scooping up a company like Ubisoft might seem like the smart thing to do for many in the industry. Whether that actually ends up happening remains to be seen.
Unsurprisingly, Ubisoft isn’t the only company that has spoken about its willingness to listen to acquisition offers of late. PlatinumGames recently did the same- read more on that through here.