The Crew expected to shift 2.5M units, sales targets lowered due to "limited potential" as a driving game
Ubisoft held an investor's call yesterday to discuss its revised financial outlook following the delay of Watch Dogs and The Crew into spring 2014.
The firm also revealed on the call that "already released games" such as Splinter Cell: Blacklist and Rayman Legends among "others" missed projected sales targets.
"Principally the profit warning is related to the postponement of The Crew and Watch Dogs," said Ubisoft's chief financial officer Alain Martinez per
Discussing the delay of Watch Dogs and The Crew, Ubisoft said it expects the titles to sell over 6.2 million and 2.5 million units, respectively. While Watch Dog projections remain unchanged, Martinez said the numbers for the The Crew were a bit lower due to its "limited potential" as a driving game, and also due to the fact it is only releasing on PC, PS4 and Xbox One, compared to Watch Dogs and its multiplatform release. "We generally have spoken to about over 2.5 million units," said Martinez via VideoGamer. "We'll see where we go and we believe that we have a nice potential for the future." Ubisoft revised its financial outlook yesterday for fiscal year 2014 after it announced delays for The Crew and Watch Dogs, stating it now expects sales of between €995 million and €1.045 billion compared to the prior target of between €1.420 billion and €1.450 billion. The delays could see Ubisoft losing fiscal revenue of $560 million, which would result in a loss of around $88 million and due to yesterday's news, shared in the firm fell 25%. Yesterday, retailers Amazon and GameStop said not to worry about pre-order bundles for either PS4 or Xbox One, as it will work with customers in various ways. All would still receive their next-gen consoles at launch, with Watch Dogs either being sent to them upon release, or customers could swap for a different bundle.