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Today, French publisher Ubisoft reported that its first quarter sales for the year ending March 2010 came in at 83 million Euros. This is down from 169 million Euros over the same June quarter in 2008. Ubsoft had expected its first quarter sales to come in at 95 million Euros. Ubisoft cited three reasons for not meeting its 95 million Euro target:

- Sales of Ubisoft's DS games - new and catolog - slowed down more than the company expected in the quarter.

- Ubisoft's catolog Xbox 360 and PS3 also slowed down from the previous June quarter.

- Macro-economic conditions were worse than expected.

On the positive side, Ubisoft grew its share of the Wii market by over 50% year over year in both the Americas and Europe. Call of Juarez (PS3/360/PC) and Anno (DS, Wii, PC) performed as expected for the quarter.

For the September quarter, Ubisoft has revised its forecast sharply downward. The company expects to make only 80 million Euros in the quarter, down 50 million from the previously projected 130m Euros. Ubisoft cites the same three reasons as above for the downward forecast. Academy of Champions, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles alongside a bevvy of smaller 'casual releases' are Ubisoft's primary releases for the quarter.

Ubisoft has also revised its forecast for the year ending March 2010 down to 1.04b Euros from 1.10b Euros. Higher expectations for Assassin's Creed 2 which will make the holiday quarter prevented the company from lowering the expectations further. Ubisoft key exclusive titles Red Steel 2 (Wii) and Splinter Cell Conviction (X360) are now coming in the March 2010 quarter instead of the December 2009 quarter, which offsets the rising expectations for Assassin's Creed 2. Ghost Reacon and I Am Alive have both been delayed to the new fiscal year, meaning they won't be available before April 2010.

For the half year ending June 2009, Ubisoft claimed to be the 5th largest third party publisher in the Americas, and the third largest in Europe.

Update:

Lastly, Ubisoft provided what it calls a "breakdown of sales by platform" chart. I have transcribed it below. Interestingly, Ubisoft cited a 67% decline in DS software for June 2009 quarter compared to the June 2008 quarter even though the contribution of DS games sales to total games declined far less drastically (about 1/3). A little bit of math explains why: Ubisoft made 169 million Euros in the June 2008 quarter. That dropped to 83 million Euros for the current June quarter. If DS games were 37% of that 169m Euro total last year, DS games totalled 62.53 million Euros. With 26% of the 83 million Euro total, DS games totalled 21.58m Euros - a drop of 65% (well within the margins of currency exchange change to get to Ubisoft's reported 67% drop).

Each platform produced less revenue for Ubisoft in the current June quarter, but DS and PS3 were the biggest culprits.

Extended further, Wii and Xbox 360 produced almost the same amount of money for Ubisoft both quarter because of the drop in overall revenues. PS3 appears to be the HD system more responsible for the "slowdown of cataolog titles" cited above with a smaller market share and fewer sales in 2009, Ubisoft earned 10.8m Euros on PS3 in 2009, compared to 35.5m Euros in 2008 for the June quarter. In other words, every platform that did not more than double its market share in the chart below from Ubisoft's quarterly earnings report produced less money for Ubisoft in the June 2009 quarter than the June 2008 quarter.