So far, the nascent virtual reality space has been dominated by independent developers willing to experiment with the early, unproven hardware. Only a few major publishers have been willing to dip in a cautious toe with prototype VR modes that are often hidden or tacked on . That is beginning to change, though, with Ubisoft announcing that it's working on a "number of games" for virtual reality platforms to be released in the first half of 2016.

"We believe a lot in virtual reality because we see that it is really giving a chance for gamers to be more immersed in worlds, and we are developing a certain number of games that are going to take advantage of these new possibilities," Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said during a Q&A following yesterday's earnings call. "We are working on the different brands we have to see how we can take advantage of those new possibilities, but making sure also we don't suffer from what comes with it, which is the difficulty to play a long time with those games."

Worries about "difficulty to play for a long time" seem to be making other major publishers (and even some indie developers wary to fully commit to virtual reality just yet. Last November, Take-Two President and CEO Strauss Zelnick said of VR games, "We are concerned that you'll play our games for a long period of time—we don't want people getting nauseated... and also, having had the experience, I'm not sure how long you want an immersive headset on your head." Around the same time, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen told the UBS Global Technology Conference that VR tech has to improve "to make sure people enjoy it but don't get sick by it too quickly."

Despite those worries, Ubisoft seems to see potential value in developing for headsets like the Valve-powered HTC Vive (due later this year), the Oculus Rift, and Sony's Project Morpheus (both due in early 2016). "We are very bullish about the potential," Guillemot said. "We think it is going to bring more players to the universe of video games, and we are going to come with our brands. We will have a few titles in the first year and we will have regular games coming following that."

Last March, Ubisoft Vice President of Creative Lionel Raynaud told Gamespot that he thought a VR headset "would need to sell at least one million units to be viable for development." That suggests Ubisoft sees a sufficient market of early VR hardware adopters to make its software plans viable in the near future. Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe told Ars last June that the company hopes to sell "north of a million units" of the first consumer version of the Rift headset. That's only a start toward what Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sees as 50 to 100 million units in the next decade. If that comes to pass, we'd expect a lot more major gaming publishers to be on board.

Elsewhere in the earnings call, Ubisoft announced it was dropping development for the Xbox 360 and PS3 going forward, and that The Division has been delayed into the first quarter of the 2016 calendar year. Overall, the company saw revenues increase 45 percent over last year, and a profit of €112.7 million ($125.8 million) after significant losses the year before.