Despite having titles like Assassin’s Creed in its roster, Ubisoft’s bread and butter appears to come from the casual realm.
The biggest selling franchises for videogame giant Ubisoft might make most of the people reading this article cringe. Despite the popularity of Assassin’s Creed, Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia, and Rainbow Six Vegas, nothing beats insane rabbits for Ubisoft.
Or perhaps I should say: Rabbids. A graphic on Siliconera breaks down each of Ubisoft’s most popular franchises, and Rayman Raving Rabbids has moved the most units by a long shot with around 29 million copies sold.
However, the runner up is a core franchise: Rainbow Six Vegas with 23 million units sold. After that we have a tie between Splinter Cell and, wait for it, the Petz series at 22 million, followed by the venerable Assassin’s Creed with 20 million. Nipping at Ezio’s heels are the Imagine titles with 19 million in sales.
It might make a tear come out of the hardcore gamer’s eye to know that has Petz beat out Splinter Cell in lifetime sales, but there’s really nothing wrong with this. We should want Ubisoft to find as many avenues for profit as it can, and I’m sure plenty of gamers have been enjoying raising their virtual pets, battling with nutty rabbids, and becoming a babysitter or teacher through their DS’s in recent years. These franchises aren’t shovelware, they just have a very different audience that the hardcore gamer.
What these numbers don’t reveal are actual profits. Rabbids, Petz, and Imagine may have sold millions, but this is across many different titles and platforms. Giant Bomb lists at least 32 titles in the Imagine series alone, and the Petz series probably isn’t too far off from that. We’re also not privy to the budget figures here, so it’s entirely possible that Assassin’s Creed has generated more revenue than Rabbids based on retail price, DLC, and other factors. Ultimately, the situation at Ubisoft is probably what would be ideal for every publisher, with strong footholds in both the casual and hardcore markets.
Source: Siliconera
Published: Dec 31, 2010 03:52 pm