Ubisoft 2006 Annual Report Download - page 9

05
PROFILE
YVES GUILLEMOT
Improve accessibility of our games
Our objective is to obtain 100% consumer satisfaction. Our
games should be accessible to beginners, all the while offering
challenges for more experienced players. In order to do this, we
constantly seek to improve our gaming experiences by studying the
attitudes and behaviors of different types of gamers as well as the
best ways to provide technical support. We have already started
putting this philosophy into practice with Tom Clancy’s Ghost
Recon Advanced Warfighter®2, a title whose variety of approa-
ches enables everyone to enjoy the game and find challenges at
their level.
Continue to build up our production teams while maintaining
competitive production costs
Honing the skills of our teams and attracting hundreds of
new talents each year is necessary to achieve our ambitions. We
plan to continue growing our existing studios in terms of size
and skills, making education and training a priority. We’re also
looking into the possibility of opening new operations in territories
that will allow us to keep production costs low.
LOOKING FORWARD
TO TOMORROW
We are evolving to keep up with a market that is moving full-
speed ahead. 2007-08 is going to be a year of extraordinary
market expansion toward new audiences, and also a year that will
be marked by the astounding increase in the power of next-gen
consoles: the Wii™, DS™, Xbox 360™ and PlayStation®3.
Our company is well-positioned to continue growing and to take
advantage of major industry evolutions. This year, Ubisoft will
benefit from one of its most impressive line-ups, enabling us to
meet objectives of 800 million in sales and an EBIT of at least 8%.
In closing, I would like to thank all of the gamers who drive us
to constantly exceed our own expectations. Thank you also to
our shareholders and our commercial and financial partners
who believe in our strategic vision and provide us with invaluable
support. Finally, I would like to extend a special thanks to all of
the Ubisoft teams, who by their passion and perseverance, have
made Ubisoft the success it is today.
YVES GUILLEMOT
CHAIRMAN & CEO
with the German publisher Sunflowers to acquire the rights asso-
ciated with the historic real-time strategy brand Anno. Coupled
with The Settlers®,Anno makes Ubisoft the uncontested leader
on the largest segment of the German market – strategy games.
Finally, we strengthened our portfolio of strong brands by purcha-
sing the rights to Far Cry®from Crytek.
2007/08:
NEW CHALLENGES AND
POSSIBILITIES FOR GROWTH
For the upcoming year, Ubisoft has identified five priorities:
Create and launch new brands while developing existing ones
This year, seven of our franchises will make highly anticipated
returns, and we will also be launching six new IPs (Intellectual
Properties) including Assassin’s Creed™,Tom Clancy's
EndWar™ and Haze™.Assassin’s Creed™ and Haze™ are
already creating a big media buzz, and customers are anxiously
awaiting the release of Tom Clancy’s EndWar™. We’re also
aiming to develop brands that are specifically designed for cer-
tain consoles, as we did last year with Red Steel™ for the Wii™.
Position Ubisoft as a reference in the casual games market
The success of the Wii™, the DS™, and Xbox®Live™ have
opened up our market to audiences such as female gamers.
These new audiences, which also include seniors, are drawn to
the fun and intuitive aspects of gaming, as well as the ability to
learn while playing. Our objective is to have 20% of sales come
from this market next year (as opposed to 10% last year) by
releasing new targeted titles such as “My Life Coach” and by
continuing to build off the success of the Petz®brand.
Remain on the cutting-edge of technology through
R&D investments
The opening of our first CGI studio illustrates our desire to
always be at the forefront of innovation and creativity. In the
beginning, this studio will be devoted to producing short films
inspired by our brands. The technology and the creative know-
how that we will gain from these projects will allow us to enrich
our characters and scenes as well as the quality of our game
graphics. In the long-term, our goal is to produce a feature-
length Ubisoft animated film. In addition, our teams are already
working on internally-developed 2nd and 3rd generation game
motors, in order to fully exploit the capacities of next-gen
consoles.