Ubisoft Entertainment (formerly
Ubi Soft) is a French computer and video game publisher and developer with headquarters in Montreuil-sous-Bois, France. The company has facilities in over 20 countries, including development studios in Montréal and Québec City, Quebec, Canada; Barcelona, Spain; Shanghai, China; North Carolina, USA; Düsseldorf, Germany; Sofia, Bulgaria; Bucharest, Romania; Casablanca, Morocco and Milan, Italy, amongst other locations. As of 2004, it is the third-largest independent video game publisher in Europe, and the seventh largest in the US.
The correct pronunciation of the company name is yoo-be-soft, though it is also commonly mispronounced "
o?-bi-s?ft".
History
The five brothers of the Guillemot family founded Ubisoft as a computer game publisher in 1986 in France. Yves Guillemot soon made deals with Electronic Arts, Sierra On-Line, and Microprose to distribute their games in France. By the end of the decade, Ubisoft began expanding to other markets, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
In the early 1990s, Ubisoft initiated its in-house game development program which led to the 1994 opening of a studio in Montreuil, France, which later became their headquarters. a character which still stars in new video games as of 2007. Ubisoft became a publicly traded company in 1996 and continued to expand to offices around the globe, opening locations in Shanghai and Montreal.Ubisoft's revenue for 2002-2003 was ?453 million; for fiscal year 2003-2004, this grew to ?508 million. As of 2004, Ubisoft employs more than 2,350 people, of which over 1700 are classed as working in production. Currently, the company's largest development studio is Ubisoft Montreal, which currently employs approximately 1,600 people.
Yves Guillemot, a founding brother, is the chairman and CEO.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Ubisoft committed itself to online games by getting behind
Ages Beyond Myst,
The Matrix Online, and the European and Chinese operation of
EverQuest. The publisher established ubi.com as its online division. But in February 2004, Ubisoft cancelled the online portion of
Uru and backed out of the publishing deal on
The Matrix Online. Regardless, only a week later the company announced its acquisition of Wolfpack Studios, developers of fantasy MMORPG
Shadowbane, and in July 2004, its
Pandora Tomorrow was released for the Xbox and PlayStation 2.Ubisoft also bought the Driver franchise from Atari in July 2006, for a sum of ?19 million (USD$24 million) in cash for the franchise, technology rights, and most assets. Additionally, though Ubisoft is not acquiring the studio outright, the 80 members of Driver developer Reflections Interactive will become employees of Ubisoft.
Acquisitions
In 2004, rival game corporation Electronic Arts purchased a 19.9% stake in the firm, an action Ubisoft referred to as "hostile" on EA's part.
In March 2005, Ubisoft acquired part of MC2-Microïds (
Microïds Canada) and integrated it into their Montréal studios.
On April 11 2007, Ubisoft announced that it had acquired German game developer Sunflowers,
followed by an acquisition of Japanese developer Digital Kids that November.
.
Criticism
Starforce Controversy
Ubisoft had, for a time, used the controversial StarForce copy protection technology that installs hidden drivers on a system and is known to cause some hardware problems and compatibility issues with certain operating systems, starting with the game Chaos Theory, which was not compatible with Windows XP Professional x64 Edition for quite some time until a patch was released by the makers of StarForce.
[ StarForce website page about patch]On April 14, 2006, Ubisoft confirmed that they would stop using StarForce on their games citing complaints from customers.
[ Ubisoft officially dumps Starforce]
EGM Controversy
In the January 2008 edition of Electronic Gaming Monthly, Editor-in-Chief, Dan ?Shoe? Hsu, asserted that Ubisoft had ceased to provide games to EGM for review as a result of prior negative reviews.
[ 3 Companies Bar EGM From Coverage Following Poor Reviews]
PRegScheduler MFC Application
When Ubisoft software is installed a product registration application called "PRegScheduler MFC Application" is copied as "PowerReg Scheduler.exe" outside of its specified installation directories. It is placed directly in the Startup folder rather than linking to the Ubisoft folder. PowerReg Scheduler.exe may show up as "PowerREGISTER" in your task list. Examination of the programs properties shows the "Company Name" to be blank, even though the rest of the property information is available. The inability to identify this application by installation directory or by company information has resulted in reports of alarm that an unknown program by an unidentified company has been placed in their startup folder for unknown purpose.
[ Technical information on PRegScheduler]
Upcoming games
2008
- Assassin's Creed (PC)
- Hell's Highway (PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360)
- Elements (Xbox 360)
- Driver (PlayStation 3)
- FarCry 2 (PC, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360)
- A Futuristic Harvest Moon - Special Edition (Playstation 2 only)
- Haze (PlayStation 3)
- Tree of Peace (Wii)
- Island of Happiness (Nintendo DS]]
- Harvest Moon Online (Playstation 3, Xbox 360, PC)
- Heroes (TBA)
- Via Domus (PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360)
- Nitrobike (Wii)
- No More Heroes (Wii)
- Redsteel II (Working Title, Wii, release in late 2008)
- Rune Factory 2 (Nintendo DS)
- U-Boat Mission (PC)
- Tom Clancy's Air Combat (PC, PlayStaion 3, and Xbox 360)
- Tom Clancy's EndWar (PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360)
- Vegas 2 (PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360)
- Conviction (PC and Xbox 360)
2009
- Assassin's Creed 2
- Avatar
- Ghosts of the Past
Upcoming Motion Picture
2009
- Citizen Siege
- The Sands of Time
See also
- Ubisoft Entertainment games
- List of Ubisoft games
References
External links
Companies of FranceCompanies established in 1986Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences membersVideo game developersEntertainment Software Association
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