Ubisoft has been doing pretty well for themselves lately. With massive sales ofAssassin’s Creedlast year leading the charge to a doubling of yearly earnings and the recent reboot ofPrince of Persiaearning high praise from critics, you would think that they’d be moving quickly to capitalize on their success.
Not so, says Laurent Detoc, president of Ubisoft North America, in a recent conversation withForbes. After making the observation that the two sequels to the last-gen blockbusterPrince of Persia: Sands of Timefailed to produce similar sales numbers, the developer has come to the realization that churning out a sequel to a successful franchise every year might not be the best strategy. Which explains why we didn’t see a follow-up toAssassin’s Creedthis year.
Detoc believes that spacing sequels out over a few years time will help to create more anticipation for them. And I don’t think anyone would argue that a longer development cycle could do wonders for quality control.
It’s about time some of the big boys started to come to this conclusion.
[ViaGamesIndustry]
