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CHEAT SHEET


THE EDITOR E3 BELONGED TO UBISOFT A


nother E3, another titanic battle between Sony and Microsoft.


This year things were a touch


more even, and respectful, too. Sony didn’t harp on about its sales lead, while Microsoft referred to both PlayStation and Nintendo as ‘friends’. It’s nice, even if they’re not really fooling anyone. Who won E3 out of Xbox and PlayStation comes down to perspective and a little bit of bias. So I’ll opt for neither platform holder (or indeed Nintendo, who hadn’t had their turn at the time of going to press). My pick has to be Ubisoft. I remember when Ubisoft’s CEO Yves Guillemot told us that he believes his company can topple EA to become the biggest games publisher in the world. It’s a nice ambition, but surely it’s an unrealistic one? EA’s money and long list of blockbuster IP, not to mention sports, makes them pretty much untouchable atop the publishing pile. And yet with each passing E3, I see Ubisoft growing in stature and confi dence. This year’s show came on the back of Watch Dogs, the fastest selling new IP in history – a game that smashed even Ubisoft’s own lofty sales expectations. Ubisoft’s 2014 line-up is


arguably the strongest it has ever had. The aforementioned Watch Dogs is followed by Assassin’s Creed Unity in October, which wowed crowds at two diff erent press conferences. As did Far Cry 4, which is due out in November. Meanwhile The Crew, which is also out in November, had


June 13th 2014


Ubisoft has been moving in the right direction. The bigger you are, the easier it is to throw stones at. And as we saw at E3 last week, Ubisoft is defi nitely getting bigger.


arguably its strongest showing yet. That’s four triple-A next-gen console games out in the current calendar year. Could this be the moment Ubisoft takes the publishing top spot? And as well as all that,


there’s the publisher’s casual games and fi tness titles. Even these are pushing boundaries in terms of interactive TV and smartphone integrations. Of course, as Ubisoft becomes bigger it’s attracting its critics. Not everyone was enamored with Watch Dogs, and the fi rm’s obsession with open world gaming has seen some accuse it of repeating the same tricks across its games (although in my opinion all of these action games are off ering something quite diff erent). Yet this is all a sign that Ubisoft has been moving in the right direction. The bigger you are, the easier it is to throw stones at. And as we saw at E3 this past week, Ubisoft is defi nitely getting bigger. Chris.Dring@intentmedia.co.uk


THE WEEK IN VIDEO GAM


MICROSOFT PLOTS FESTIVE FIGHT BACK


X


box ditched all talk of Kinect, SmartGlass, sports and entertainment at E3


this year and spent 90 minutes showing everyone some lovely looking Xbox One games. It’s perhaps fear that has driven Microsoft to play it so safe. Last year’s disappointing E3 performance left the platform holder struggling for momentum just weeks after revealing Xbox One, they can’t let that happen again. But Xbox is now in a far


stronger position. Its console is more competitive in price, its hardware is improving and its line-up continues to impress.


It was with the games that


was ultimately Microsoft’s biggest victory from E3. Sony had a lot of interesting products to show, but most of them are launching in 2015 or beyond. Microsoft deliberately dedicated part of its conference to games out this year, with Sunset Overdrive and Halo Master Chief Collection generating the most column inches. Microsoft’s marketing teams


will know that Q4 represents a signifi cant opportunity to try and slow Sony’s momentum. So expect the company to pull out all the stops in the battle for Christmas.


Market Data


UK games market crashes back to normality after last week’s huge performance following the launch of Watch Dogs and Mario Kart 8


£30m £15m £31.9m 830,432 units £10m £9.2m 328,171 units £00m


Week Ending May 24th


04


Week Ending May 31st


£11.3m 371,603 units


Week Ending June 7th


www.mcvuk.com


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