Acquisitions Not Central to Plans, Ubisoft Official Says

The head of Ubisoft in North America, Laurent Detoc, said acquisitions are not the center of his company's strategy.

Detoc told the San Francisco Chronicle, "I don't think we will focus on acquisitions unless it makes sense for us.We're not a reactive company, we're builders."

He also said casual games were a sector Ubisoft hopes to exploit because of low development costs, but that there were significant marketing costs associated with the effort involved in enticing new gamers. Casual games account for a quarter of the company's sales.

"The margins on these games are good when you look at development, but it takes a lot of marketing dollars," he explained. "It's like packaged goods. You have to think about marketing, retail space, branding."

Along similar lines, Detoc said the Wii platform and its newly introduced Balance Board presented opportunities, but outside developers have had problems capitalizing on them. So far the Wii only accounts for 10 percent of Ubisoft sales.

Source: SFGate.com