Ubisoft Sales Down Yet Again Despite Surge in 'Rainbow Six Siege' Player Base

It's been a rough year for the French gaming company, but CEO Yves Guillemot is looking ahead to "releasing five new AAA games in 2020-21."

Sales were down for French video game company Ubisoft over its most recent financial quarter to €416.2 million ($456.9 million), a dip from €562 million ($617 million) over the same period the year before.

The new report follows a downward trend from the company from its Q2 earnings report in October, which reported lowered sales year-over-year as well. The overall dip in sales this fiscal year can partially be attributed to underperforming 2019 game releases, such as Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint in October, sales of which Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot called "very disappointing."

Still, the company's back catalog of titles performed well over Q3, particularly 2015's Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, which hit an all-time high in monthly active users in December and now boasts 55 million registered players.

"Although the current fiscal year is well below our initial expectations, the third fiscal quarter saw excellent performances from several titles in our back catalog — particularly Rainbow Six Siege, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, The Crew 2 and Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle — and from the release of Just Dance 2020 (in November), which is back on the growth track," said Guillemot. "The fact that our number of active players, MAUs and PRI on consoles and PC have remained stable year on year at high levels clearly demonstrates the depth of our game’s portfolio and the firmer resilience of our business model."

Ubisoft is set to launch a number of new AAA titles in the coming fiscal year, including Watch Dogs: Legion and Gods & Monsters.

"We have evolved our organizational structure in recent months in order to strengthen our focus on high-potential titles, and we are very excited about the idea of releasing five new AAA games in 2020-21," added Guillemot, noting an "especially tough" competitive environment. "Production of these games is progressing well and each of them comes with great features that set them apart. We also will be releasing other very innovative titles that have a particular focus on social interaction."

Looking ahead, Ubisoft predicts net bookings in Q4 to be down a significant 50 percent year-over-year, to €333 million ($365.6 million). For the full fiscal year, the company expects operating income to be between €20 million and €50 million ($21.9 million-$54.9 million).