And he's not just saying that to make up for years of financial inequity and utterly perverse release schedules. "First, our money - the pound or the euro - is very strong and because of that the turnover from those countries is heavier than they used to be," Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot tells GamesIndustry.biz. "So for Ubisoft turnover Europe is actually more important than the US now, and by more than 5 per cent. It's become a very strong market for us."
Guillemot suspects that's largely to blame on all the exercise Europeans have been getting with new accessories and more accessible games, the likes of which even include politically charged real-time strategy scuffle Tom Clancy's EndWar. "A game like EndWar, for example, which you can control by voice - it's totally changing the industry because it gives you the opportunity to command what's happening, and to have a quick answer to the orders you give."
While Ubi and Yu-rop laugh all the way to the bank, remind yourself that EndWar totally changes the industry on October 14th on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
This is it, folks. The winners of the official Game Critics Awards for E3 2008 – as chosen by 36 representatives (including yours truly) from most of the leading video game outlets – have been revealed. Leading the pack with two wins each are Fallout 3 – winner of "Best of Show" and "Best RPG" – along with LittleBigPlanet – winner of Best Console game and Best Social/Casual/Puzzle game.
The top publisher was EA (just like in our own awards) with five wins, while Sony took second place with an impressive three wins. In terms of platform concentration, the Xbox 360 barely edged out the competition with eight wins versus both the PC and PS3's seven (for those of you keeping track, the Wii only managed one win and that was for its version of Madden 09). We've got the full list after the break, or check out the Game Critics site for the breakdown by publisher and platform or refresh your memory with this list of nominees in the various categories.
"Attack the enemy base!" "Yes sir, I'll enter a foot race." "No, launch the missiles!" "We'll harvest all nearby thistles." "Attack the enemy units. Please, listen to me." "Downloading latest DLC." "Oh ... just forget it."
This doesn't happen in Tom Clancy's EndWar. It may be a sad comment on the history of in-game voice commands, but the best compliment one can give to Ubisoft's robust interface is that it works. There's no need to plead with it in a robotic tone or a slowed pace, and no voice training is required beforehand. Despite slipping in an "uh" here and there while contemplating orders, EndWar understood everything we said. Well, everything aside from the muttered curses prompted by our utter defeat.
While barking orders into a headset and commanding our tanks to ineffectually annihilate agitate the enemy army, we received some release date intel for upcoming tanks-go-here-helicopters-go-there skirmish, Tom Clancy's EndWar. According to Ubisoft, the console-oriented, real-time strategy game will march onto shelves in the US and Europe on October 14th. It'll launch on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 first, followed by PSP and DS versions at a later stage. A PC version is currenty "under consideration."
Check back later this week for our hands-on impressions of Tom Clancy's EndWar.
In case your appetite for voice-controlled strategizing hasn't been whetted enough by the bountifulbeta leaks, an Ubisoft Forum Manager has announced that you can get "access to the exclusive Stress Test" (i.e. early playtime) for Tom Clancy's End War by pre-ordering the game at participating retailers. More details are said to be forthcoming; a stress test registration page has been unearthed on the End War website that lists July 8 as the opening day.
Update: Ubi lawyer-ninjas (totally different than ninja-lawyers) move quick. Video is down.
It's off some guy's television screen and the audio is horrible, but if you're itching to see what Tom Clancy's EndWar looks like, some naughty beta-tester uploaded a video of the game for all to see.
Now watch the video above and enjoy the fruits of somebody breaking their non-disclosure agreement (NDA). If the video suddenly disappears, the Ubi lawyer-ninjas probably got to it. Now we need to photoshop some lawyer-ninjas in case that actually happens. Watch ... while you still can.
Several Joystiq readers have clued us in on a private beta for Tom Clancy's EndWar coming in June. Now Ubisoft has posted a signup page for those who have received an invitation, and a few details are given.
The three-week beta will take place during both June and July and is available only for Xbox 360 players. You will be able to play three maps in online 1-on-1 and 2-on-2 matches. The beta, available in English only, requires participants to have Xbox Live Gold membership, broadband internet connection and 3GB of hard drive space. The beta is available in English only.
Using the Playstation Eye, the PS3 version of the game will allow players to wave their hands underneath the camera to navigate the game's overhead map. The feature is currently only being developed for the PS3 version, as the 360's Vision Camera lacks the stand to hold the camera vertically.
Of course, like head tracking in Boom Blox, this somewhat ancillary feature might not make the final cut of the game. We'll keep our fingers crossed (and moving in a counter-clockwise circle, which is how our own fancy gesture control system knows we're being sincere).
Well, there's good news and there's bad news. The good? You're about to see a boatload of footage from upcoming RTS Tom Clancy's EndWar. The bad? The Frag Dolls are the ones doing the demonstrating. Let's talk gameplay first. In our opinion, the graphics are solid but the UI looks a bit jumbled. Of course, that's usually the way with an RTS until you know what's going on.
Thanks to the game's voice command, just the sound of the Frag Dolls' voices is enough to make troops start shooting people (a reaction we completely sympathize with). We can't decide if our favorite moment is when the blonde one (Scary Spice?) punches a fist in the air and gleefully shouts "World War 3!" or when she punches lower and gleefully shouts "Yeah! Weapons of mass destruction!" In truth our favorite part is after the video when you the viewer get to hear what the Ubisoft-employed Frag Dolls think of the game. (Spoiler alert: They love it.)
In a very rare joint interview with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs on stage at last week's D 2007, Microsoft founder Bill Gates told hosts Walter Mossberg and Kara Swisher, both of the Wallstreet Journal, of his vision for the future of interaction with technology, and therefore gaming, and inadvertently used the Nintendo Wii as a stepping stone.
"Imagine a game machine where you can just pick up a bat and swing it or the tennis racket," said Gates, to which Mossberg noted that one exists, referencing Wii Sports.
"No, no, that's not it," said Gates, "you can't pick up your tennis racket and swing it, ['Oh, I see what you mean,' said Mossberg] you can't sit there with your friends and do those natural things. That's a 3D positional device, this is video recognition, this is a camera seeing what's going on ... the camera will be ubiquitous."
Ubisoft's Ubidays event in Paris spawned almost as many video trailers as it did announcements. Thanks to the wonders of embeddable streaming video, we're able to put them all in a single post for your viewing pleasure and/or displeasure, depending on the game.
Naruto: Rise of a Ninja (Xbox 360)
Loosely based on the 837,212 episodes of popular anime, Naruto, this cel-shaded action game seems to strongly encourage you to leap through trees, punch older men and generally behave like a ninja who's under the constant scrutiny of kids. No sudden decapitations like that other guy.
EndWar's controls truly arenothing like the controls for Battle for Middle-earth. The Tom Clancy-branded RTS will be playable using only voice commands directed through a headset, Ubisoft confirmed today during its 'Ubidays' event in Paris. While the option to use a gamepad will still be available, the voice-controlled default setting might solve the difficulties of navigating a console RTS without a mouse n' keyboard -- or, it might not. Of course, being the "end war," why not risk it all with a novel control scheme?
Further impressions will likely arrive tomorrow, as EndWar is expected to be featured on the Ubidays show floor.
EGM has secured some hot new details on the fourth pillar of the vast Tom Clancy empire, the RTS EndWar. The game is being headed up by Michael de Plater, a familiar name to fans of the Total War series, who said he's taking a different approach to the console RTS. In fact, EGM quotes him as saying "[The Battle for Middle-earth II] was a test case for exactly what we didn't want to do." Oh, snap! Reporting from the EGM info, CVG says the game will pit the U.S. Joint Strike Force, Russian Spetsnaz and European Enforcers against each other on fully-destructible battlefields, with fights limited to 12 squads at a time. With all of the questions that it does answer, EGM leaves the most important one on the table: Has no one realized that if this is, in fact, the "end war," it'll leave Tom Clancy slinging curly fries at Arby's? Hopefully we'll find the answer in next month's issue of the mag.
Ubisoft has just announced EndWar, the latest addition to their blockbuster Tom Clancy series. The first Tom Clancy game built from the ground up for next-gen systems (sorry, Sam), EndWar is a "revolutionary war strategy game ... like no other." Now, that means it's a "revolutionary" war strategy game, not a Revolutionary War strategy game which, obviously, wouldn't have any of the high-tech doodads we've come to expect from this brand.
EndWar is being developed by Ubisoft Shanghai who share development duties on the Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, and Splinter Cell properties. We don't know much about the game except that it's due on next-generation consoles (we don't think they mean you, Wii) in fiscal year 2007/2008 and that we'll be able to "lead [our] own armies against hundreds of others online in real global locations on the massive battlefields of World War III." See, we told you it wasn't the Revolutionary War.
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