Watch Dogs, South Park sequels coming in 2017 - Ubisoft Q3
A sequel to Watch Dogs was confirmed today in Ubisoft's latest financial results along with an unannounced triple-A new IP title in the works with an online component.
According to the release notes the game is slated to arrive by the end of the company's next financial year, which ends on April 30, 2017.
The South Park sequel was announced at E3 2015, but a release window wasn't provided at the time.
Along with the announcement of "re-examining" the Assassin's Creed franchise and a Watch Dogs sequel coming in FY 2017, during the aforementioned Ubisoft will also launch For Honor, Ghost Recon: WildLands, and the unannounced new "high-potential AAA brand" with strong digital live services.
The Division is also being considered the company's "sixth major brand" and and along with The Crew, the firm now has plenty of IP it can rely on to develop "any time" it seems feasible.
The new triple-A IP title will be one of five games in total coming from Ubisoft in 2017. Three are expected to be released by the end of this year, but the company "isn't quite sure" if all will be released just yet.
Finally, Ubisoft expects Virtual Reality machine sales to "pick up" next year.
Sales by platform and region are posted in the image below.
Financials
For the quarter ending December 31, 2015, the firm reported €561.8 million in sales with "record engagement levels and digital revenue." This was attributed to a "strong comeback in multiplayer" with the release of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege.
"Looking beyond our sales figures for the quarter, which have led us to update our full-year targets, our strategy of focusing on player engagement is paying off," said company co-founder and CEO Yves Guillemot.
"For example, Rainbow Six Siege achieved record engagement levels during the period thanks to the success of its exceptional multiplayer mode. These advances are a decisive step in our business development and demonstrate the strong execution of our strategy, which will ultimately translate into regular revenue streams and enhanced profitability.
"The upcoming releases of Far Cry Primal and The Division should confirm these trends. The Division - whose recent closed beta exceeded all of our expectations - is set to be one of the largest launches of a new brand in the history of the video game industry."
Sales for the third quarter of 2015-16 came to €561.8 million ($638.2 million), compared with €809.7 ($920 million) for the same quarter year-over-year (yoy), which is a 30% decline.
For the first nine months of the current fiscal year, sales totaled €769.1 million ($873.77 million) compared to €1,293.9 million.
Digital revenues brought in €207.7 million ($235 million) for the first nine months of 2015-16 and represented 27% of the total, versus 21.2% yoy.
There was also a 42.6% jump in back-catalog sales to €280.8 million ($318.7 million) for the first nine months of the year.