Ubisoft failed at courting Cryptic before the Atari takeover

by Alexis Kassan Dec 11th 2008 at 11:00AM

According to CFO Alain Martinez, Ubisoft was also looking into acquiring Cryptic before Atari stepped in and inked a deal. Though they are disappointed at having missed this opportunity, there seems to be no shortage of acquisition options. Martinez states that they are looking at taking over two to three small companies in the next few months, but details of what products this may involve are unknown.

Ubisoft has been busy advertising their latest console-and-PC title, Prince of Persia, for the holiday season and working on Assassin's Creed 2 - currently expected to be released in fiscal year 2010. CEO Yves Guillemot states they are planning to launch online game products in 2009, but says the experience will be more casual than the expansive Cryptic titles like Champions Online and Star Trek Online. This would have been one giant leap in moving to the MMO model.

Tags: acquisition, acquisitions, atari, cryptic, cryptic-studios, merger, mergers, ubisoft

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Hades said on 12:15PM 12-11-2008

Ubisoft has no idea how to support an MMORPG project. Shadowbane wasn't perfect but some decisions the made or failed to make during that first year helped to sink that game.

They also tried another MMO and failed with that title as well.

Ubisoft should stick to making PC games, and leave the MMORPG world alone.