Odyssey and Siege push Ubisoft to a better-than-expected quarter

Ubisoft closed out the first quarter of its 2019-2020 financial year with €314.2 million (~$352.7 million) in net bookings, which is down 17.6 percent year-over-year but “well above” the target Ubisoft set for the quarter ending June 30, 2019.

In its Q1 financial reporting, Ubisoft credits Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Rainbow Six Siege for that performace, two games that notably released before Q1 even began. Both games have been reoccurring staples in Ubisoft’s quarterly reports, and the developer says that player recurring investment in both titles has continued to rise.

In the case of Siege, a 2015 release, Ubisoft says the game has been one of the top ten best-selling titles in the past five years (based on data on $60 game sales from NPD, GfK, GSD, Ubisoft’s own estimates), and saw both player recurring investment and engagement rise year-over-year.

For Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Ubisoft notes that the game shows a “sharp increase” in daily engagement, player recurring income, and sell-through compared to Q1 performance of its predecessor Assassin’s Creed Origins last year.

French accounting law means that Ubisoft won’t share profit information until the end of the fiscal year, but the Q1 report offers a slight breakdown of how its sales and net bookings fared this quarter. Looking at that €314.2 million (~$352.7 million) in net bookings, €292.4 million (~$328.2 million) came from digital sources. Of that, €150.4 million (~$168.8 million) of digital came from player recurring income like digital items, DLC, season passes, and subscriptions, a 19.5 percent increase year-over-year.