Previously delayed from December 2016 to Q1 2017, South Park: The Fractured But Whole has been delayed again and is now releasing in Fiscal Year 2017 – 2018, which runs from April 2017 to March 2018.
The news comes from Ubisoft’s financial report for the quarter ending December 31, 2016, where they also said Watch Dogs 2’s launch was “not as dynamic as expected, but momentum now positive.” Steep, meanwhile, had a “slightly higher-than-expected performance.”
Elsewhere in the report, Ubisoft said Rainbow Six Siege has 15 million registered players and record Daily Active Users, The Division’s number of Daily Active Users is up 152% since October 24, and the Assassin’s Creed movie is over $213 million worldwide, making it the seventh most successful video game adaptation.
Sales for Ubisoft’s third quarter were down 5.7% year-on-year to €529.9 million ($567 million USD), but sales for the first nine months of this fiscal year are up 5.5% to €811.3 million ($868 million USD). Because of the delay to South Park, Ubisoft expects total sales for this fiscal year to drop from around €1.67 billion to €1.5 billion.
PlayStation 4 was by far Ubisoft’s biggest platform, with 46% of sales coming through Sony’s console. Xbox One was at 26%, with PC at 13%, and PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, and Wii U combining for 10%.
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said:
We are successfully pursuing our transformation into a more recurring and more profitable profile. The positive effects of this transformation are remarkable. They illustrate how far ahead of schedule we are in our digital development, which is one key element of our three-year targets. Our overall player community is growing rapidly. We hit record engagement levels during the period, with 33% more MAU year on year. The number of daily players of Rainbow Six Siege is at its highest ever, an exceptional performance given that the game was released 14 months ago. Meanwhile, The Division has continued its successful come-back, with engagement up by more than 150% by the end of December. This resulted in record back-catalog sales and digital revenue for the third quarter, and we saw another sharp rise in player recurring investment.
In light of the positive impacts of our transformation, combined with our overall solid performance and tight cost control, we are standing by our objective of achieving record operating income and operating margin for fiscal 2016-17, despite lower-than-expected sales. Our targets for fiscal 2017-18 will be announced mid-May and will include an increase in our topline and operating income, while factoring in the very competitive environment that we expect to see throughout the year. Longer term, with the current successful implementation of our strategic plan, we are confident we will achieve our targets for fiscal 2018-19. In fact, by the end of fiscal 2016-17, we expect to meet, or even exceed, the 45% digital revenue and 17% player recurring investment targets we had set for fiscal 2018-19.
Between now and March 31, 2017, Ubisoft will release For Honor and Ghost Recon Wildlands, as well as this DLC: Steep’s Alaska, The Division’s Expansion III: Last Stand, and Watch Dogs 2’s Human Conditions and No Compromise.
[Source: Ubisoft]
