French publishing giant Ubisoft has delayed the launches of both Far Cry 6 and Rainbow Six Quarantine.
The firm revealed this news alongside its financial report for the six months ending September 30th, saying that development had slowed down thanks to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic and staff moving to work from home. These titles will now be launching in the next financial year.
For the first half of the 2020/21 fiscal year, Ubisoft reported net bookings of €754.7m ($880.55m), an increase of 14.2 per cent year-on-year. The firm also boasts of 100m active players in its console and PC titles, while Rainbow Six: Siege now has more than 65m registered users. Since launch, consumers have spent in the region of €2.5bn ($2.9bn) on the online shooter.
“The video game industry is benefitting from very strong momentum," CEO Yves Guillemot (pictured) said.
"It is by far the fastest-growing segment of entertainment and is driving unprecedented consumer engagement and social interactions. In this context, our strategy and competitive advantages continue to be fully validated by recent industry announcements of consolidation and new platform launches. The value of video game IPs has never been so strong and these announcements highlight the importance of owning a deep and diversified portfolio of high-quality franchises. Thanks to this major asset, which we have built up organically over more than two decades, Ubisoft has entered into fruitful partnerships with the biggest technological and video game platforms, who are all thrilled to onboard our content."
Guillemot also touched on the recent controversies around Ubisoft's working culture, following allegations of misconduct and general toxicity at the company's global studios.
"During the quarter we undertook profound actions to create a safer and more inclusive workplace and to transform our corporate culture," he said.
"That included auditing our HR processes and listening to feedback from more than 14,000 of Ubisoft’s employees, which helped give us a deep understanding of the situation and create a roadmap to guide our improvement. While much remains to be done, our teams’ testimonies showed a deep attachment to Ubisoft and a strong desire to defend the values of respect and benevolence on which the Group was built. We are committed to making the necessary changes to create an exemplary workplace culture of which everyone at Ubisoft can be proud."
