PSP to boost Assassin's Creed 2 sales 15 per cent
Pre-orders "much higher" than first title; Handheld bundle for PSP release
Ubisoft is expecting sales of Assassin's Creed 2 to be 15 per cent higher than the first title, primarily due to the release of the sequel on Sony's PSP.
The original game sold over eight million units worldwide according to Ubisoft's last count in April 2009. As well as releasing on the additional format, the publisher revealed a game and PSP hardware bundle is also due at retail in time for the November release.
"Following the strong showing of Assassin's Creed at E3 and the current buzz, we now think the game should be selling around 15 per cent more units than the first title," stated Alain Corre, executive director for Ubisoft, in a conference call yesterday.
"Our previous guidance suggested it was going to sell less units than the first title. Most of this performance actually comes from the addition of one platform, the PSP, of which Assassin's Creed was not released in the past. Half of this performance is done with guaranteed bundles," he added.
Pre-orders from retail are already impressive, according to CEO Yves Guillemot, who revealed interest is out-performing the heavily-hyped original game.
"Assassin's Creed 2 pre-orders are much higher than the previous title and the game is really coming along very well," he said.
Assassin's Creed 2 on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC is released November 13 in Europe, with the PSP version due November 20.