The Crew 2 activity "in line" with The Crew 1
Ubisoft sees open-world racing sequel following in the tracks of its predecessor, hoping continued support leads to continuous sales over coming years
The Crew 2's mixed critical reception at launch likely wasn't what Ubisoft had hoped for, but the publisher expects the open-world racing game to make up ground over the long haul.
In a post-earnings conference call today, Ubisoft executives touched on the early results from The Crew 2, which launched right at the end of its first fiscal quarter.
"Its activity is trending in line with The Crew 1, which had benefited from a Christmas launch. Its digital performance is outperforming," CFO Alain Martinez said, without specifying whether the outperformance was relative to expectations or its predecessor.
He later added, "What we can say is the game is performing in line with the activity of the prior one. It's really on par from where we stood with the prior one. We know also the prior one had a kind of slow start and started to pick up as we built up more content and activity in the game. So if we do that, I think there would still be significant part of the sales of that game in the next three quarters."
CEO Yves Guillemot added that the company hopes to see a chunk of the game's lifetime sales realized not just over the coming quarters but over the next two or three years, adding that projects like The Crew 2 can be stronger in the long-term. Martinez agreed, noting that The Crew 1 brought in almost as much revenue in its second year as in its first.