The recent Watch_Dogs delay may hurt Ubisoft more than they thought. According to Bloomberg, Ubisoft shares plummeted after it turned out that this much anticipated open-world cyberpunk game wouldn’t be available at the launch of the next-generation consoles. The shares fell as much as 32 percent, which is more than Ubisoft has ever seen since it entered the Paris stock exchange in 1996. Ubisoft has also predicted an operating loss of 40 million euros, or 54 million American dollars, just because of these delays.
“We made a choice that will pay off in the long run,” Chief Executive Officer Yves Guillemot said in an interview. “The market has changed — we need huge blockbusters, and that means making very high-quality games.”
These are telling words from Guillemot. We have long said that gaming is collapsing under its own weight, and now the head honcho of Ubisoft basically came out and admitted only AAA titles can survive. Now the question is, will Watch_Dogs still be a AAA blockbuster even after the delay?
Source: Bloomberg