Ubisoft's Yves Guillemot
The CEO talks making movies, Wii U and 25 years of Ubisoft
The most important thing is to sell more, to have the chance to reach a larger audience. That's what we think is the best way to sell more. And to reach a larger audience if you have a TV series, and you have lots of other projects, or even if you go on a tablet or an iPhone they try your property there and they want to see more and get more into those universes. So you can take them to buy high end games.
Yes. I think so, on the high definition formats, yes. So we just have to make sure we get more revenue and diversify.
It has nothing to do with it. It's just we think that it's so easy to do, that it would be a shame not to try. The other thing which is important also is that when we do those movies or TV series, we take talent from that industry who are helping us to do a better job for the games. Really at the end of the day our goal is to make sure that we have better games with bigger worlds and universes and so on, and that we use all the many people around to achieve that goal.
I always like a new generation of consoles because it's really the best way for us to be more creative
Yes, Europe has always been strong for Ubisoft. It has generally been more than 50 per cent, the US is generally the second market with a huge penetration and in Asia we are starting to grow there using the free to play model. That is allowing us to get rich new markets.
The UK is declining quite fast. It's declining, if we don't take into account the digital revenue. When you take everything into account it's stable.
...is declining.
I think it's really linked to quality of the games, the more new games we have the better. We need fresh machines from time to time so that people can go for it and like it.
This year they will continue to drop the price, I think so. Nintendo already announced that they will do price cuts...
I always like a new generation of consoles because it's really the best way for us to be more creative. It gives you lots of new ways to create. And also the gamers are more open to innovation when a new console is coming, they don't consider all the brands the same way, so they go after something completely new and they try it. When the machines have been there for a long time you can always improve and increase the quality, but you don't make revolutions in the way things are done.
I think it is time, it is time. And that's why I'm very happy when Nintendo comes with a new console.
I don't know, you should ask them. But I think they are going to get pressure from Nintendo.
What we do is we always try to create a game that is going to help to create new technology. So it's always linked to a game or type of new game, new machine. So yes we are developing lots of technology, but that is all the time for the games we create.
Yes. Most of our games are going to be 3D.
I think the 3DS showed that you can have different experiences. It's just the beginning of the 3DS, it will take time because they didn't react as well as I thought they would react, because it has to be really tuned, but I think the experience when you can be more immersive is going to very interesting. Especially with characters, you feel the emotion in the characters you meet, 3D can help with that. So we'll see more and more 3D in the characters so that they can be more expressive and we can believe more in their emotion.
I would say each console transition has been a challenge, each time. A challenge that also brought lots of new opportunities. And so each time a transition comes you know we don't only have the console changing but we have the iPad, the iPhone, Facebook and so on, and all those times have been challenging, but each time we were able to react and bring something that used all the capacities of the new possibilities, and I think that is what is the most interesting part of this industry. You have challenges and you have a team that is going after those challenges and succeeding in making different games that are taking all the possibilities or new ways of playing with your friends.