Ubisoft may release franchise titles every 12-18 months

Corre pointed to the Call of Duty series as the best example of consistent releases and consistent quality, saying, "They never compromise on quality."

I think he's setting the bar pretty low for himself here. I consider the even-year Treyarch releases to be a compromise on quality.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess Ubisoft doesn't consider Beyond Good & Evil to be one of its major franchise titles. . .

More games are nice, but I just hope the fun won't be taken out of making them, just like Bobby Kotick wants to do with Activision.

I hope they won't compromise on quality, rush unfinished games where they can just conveniently fix them up later with patches and DLC. I hope the employees won't have to work in 'sweatshop' conditions.

That is the vibe I seem to be getting, that making games seems to be getting worse and all to get people like Kotick a fatter paycheck. Maybe I'm getting paranoid.

"Corre pointed to the Call of Duty series as the best example of consistent releases and consistent quality"

What?

"...though he was careful to say that it still plans to invest in creating better game engines and development tools in order to avoid the franchise fatigue that seems to pervade certain titles."

He needs to have a talk with Activision.

Assassin's Creed Hero which will be sold only in $120+ SKUs bundled with plastic dagger and crossbow peripherals?

So basically they are saying they want to be like Activision.

Hey, how about they just publish No More Heroes Paradise over here instead?

"They never compromise on quality, which is exactly what we're trying to do with our brands now."

Really, never? MW2 is a ton of fun, but there are definitely compromises. 1024 x 600 resolution vs. 720p, and the PC version lacking well, everything that makes it a pc version. Still a great game, but uncompromised? I don't think so. Even the engine they use is still a heavily modified Quake III engine.

In other words, Ubisoft is sticking to the waterfall production cycle, i.e. the same methods employed by EA in the past and Activision in the present.

I get why a company would want to stick to this cycle: Games are very expensive to make nowadays, and an HD game that flops could put your company at a very significant loss. From a business standpoint, it's a lot easier to keep putting out games that have proven a hit or will most likely be a hit than to go with a risky product that may or may not earn back the money you put into it.

However, the major problem with this production cycle is that it only works in the short-term. If you just keep releasing the same thing with only minute changes, franchise fatigue sets in and suddenly those games that were "safe" are no longer profitable ventures. If Ubisoft doesn't realize this, they may end up suffering for it over the long run. It's already happened to EA; they had to lay off hundreds of employees and shut down several of their smaller companies (including Pandemic Studios). Activision is starting to experience the downside of this as well.

Need another Rainbow Six please.

Nothing translates to more Beyond Good & Evil.

As long as Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six, and Ghost Recon's quality aren't compromised by consistent releases, I'll be happy.

"They never compromise on quality, which is exactly what we're trying to do with our brands now."

Bwahahahahaha.....

Milking FTW?

ANNOUNCE A NEW RAINBOW SIX FOR GOD SAKES!!

the only decent game they make, ghost recon is good too but but only the single player... i much prefer rainbow six's multiplayer

It seems like they tried this for a while already it seems.

Remember Splinter Cell seemed to have one a year come out...

GR, GRIT, GR2, .. Rainbow Six... about 1 per year... then RB6 Vegas... and a year later, RB6 Vegas2. Maybe a bit of a gap on some... but some were less than 18 months between releases.

Ubisoft already tried this and both GRAW2 and R6V2 failed to meet expectations.

It took 2 years for Assassin's Creed 2 to be released and they still didn't finish everything they intended to. So I am guessing the 12-18 month cycle simply means "we'll make more of the game DLC."

Fine with me. I liked RSV1&2, GRAW1&2, POP2008, AC1&2.

just curious how logn has this beyond good and evil been in like development feels longer than ff13 but dam it i want bge2 more than ff13(and i call myself an rpg fan =/ idk no moogles and not beign able to revist the entire world as you travel kinda sucks.)

So this is it. Ubisoft has finally become the new EA.

New IP's should be the focus instead of franchise iterations. Franchise iterations won't last forever, and shouldn't be rushed anyhow.

Err these guys do know that overstaturation of the market and relying on brands to sell games reguardless of quality was one of the big causes of the video game crash 20 years ago right?

Me, too. I miss Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon. Because of Ubilost could find its way to sequel another episode of these games, all my friends went to COD. And now that COD has grown old to them, they've started giving up on gaming.