French mega publisher Ubisoft may have had some huge titles like Far Cry 5 and The Crew 2 launch in prime positions to carry this financial quarter, but much of their actual gains come not from their new games, but several old favourites continuing to perform well, according to their newly released Q1 2018-19 results. The record-high performing first quarter, ending on June 30, 2018 raked in $466.5 million for the publisher.
Ubisoft Co-Founder Yves Guillemot said in a press release that their “Program Related Investments” and back catalog fuelled a lot of their growth. In normal person speak, this means that titles like Rainbow Six Siege and For Honor, with all of their related micro transactions and passes, were responsible for a staggering $387 million of that previous number, up nearly 75% from last year. “This performance was fuelled by steady growth for our back-catalog and an excellent momentum for PRI (program-related investments), once again confirming the increasingly recurring profile of our business and the ever-greater success of our digital transformation,” said Guillemot.
The next major title coming from the publisher is Assassin’s Creed Odyssey this October. While the company might be annoying some people with them leaning into loot boxes, it seems like just as many are okay, especially when you consider that the upcoming The Division 2 has enjoyed of a lot of beta interest. This financial reports for the quarter also showed that Ubisoft continues to sell the majority of its software on the PS4. Read more on that here.