Ubisoft Financials Down But "In Line" With Expectations, Review Of "Strategic Options" Moves To Formal Stage

Ubisoft's Q3 financial call is out and if you've been following the tribulations behind the company, you'll probably be able to guess that the financial totals are mostly down. Both sales and net bookings were down over 30% when compared to last year, but CEO Yves Guillemot says these are in line with the company's previously updated financial outlook.

The company seems to be ahead of schedule on their "cost reduction" initiative, which is a nice way of saying they laid off employees faster then they thought they could. I'm being somewhat facetious there as the ENTIRE reduction program hopefully includes things like streamlining processes and tools, too. However, employees losing their jobs is usually the main driver here, let's just be real.

"We are also progressing well on our cost reduction program. As a result of disciplined execution, we have announced further targeted restructurings, making difficult but necessary choices. And now, expect to exit our cost reduction objectives by the end of final schedule 2025, ahead of schedule," said Guillemot on the call, available as a call recording if you're so inclined.

Regarding the company's "advisors" brought in to review the company's long-term options, Guillemot noted, "The formal review process of our strategic options is ongoing. Ultimately, the objective of this competitive process is to unlock the best value from our assets for our stakeholders and to foster the best conditions to create great games in a fast-evolving market. We are convinced there are different potential paths to achieve this ambition."

As for particular games, Ubisoft will continue its focus on two primary verticals: open world action games and live service games. Speaking of the latter, Rainbow 6 Siege was specifically called out for hitting the shooter's highest monthly average revenue per paying player ever in December. A special 10th anniversary event is also in the works.

If you've been waiting on The Division: Resurgence news, here's an update for you: the mobile game is still a thing. Yeah, that's all I got for ya.

I know they're single-player, but in case you're wondering: Star Wars Outlaws is "vastly improved" and expected to be a long term seller and the upcoming Assassin's Creed Shadows is seeing pre-orders on par with Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Odyssey launched before the Ubisoft subscription platform was a thing so that may be good news if the pre-orders hold up. We'll wait and see.

Here's the full report if you like looking at number and vague statements.