In their Q1 fiscal year 2014-2015 sales report today, Ubisoft revealed that Watch Dogs has shipped over eight million units to retailers since launch. Already setting a new IP record with four million units sold in its first week, Ubisoft says this eight million sell-in is an industry record for a new brand.
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot spoke about the impressive numbers:
The success of Watch Dogs and the quality of our games portfolio presented at this year’s E3 highlight our strategic positioning as well as our continuous drive for innovation, and affirm our long-term approach.
Watch Dogs is now well positioned as a major franchise and we will be able to replicate and build on its success in the coming years. Its sales performance testifies to Ubisoft’s expertise as a creator of blockbuster brands. That expertise enables us to stand out from our competitors at the beginning of each console cycle and therefore to reach a new dimension.
The report also shows Q1 sales were €360 million, up 374% compared to the €76 million at the same point last year, with Ubisoft attributing it to the following:
Strong growth reported in the digital segment, with sales up 149 percent to €84 million, driven by Watch Dogs, the success of Ubisoft’s Free-to-Play mobile games and the releases of Trials Fusion, Child of Light, and Valiant Hearts: The Great War.
After boasting “a 27% share of views on YouTube” during E3, Ubisoft gave their outlook for Q2 of the fiscal year, which should be down considerably when compared to last year:
Ubisoft expects second-quarter sales to amount to approximately €85 million, down by around 61 percent compared with the second quarter of 2013-14, which saw the releases of Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist, Rayman: Legends, and Just Dance 2014.
Looking at the first five months of calendar 2014, Ubisoft says they were the “second-largest independent publisher in the United States with 12.4% market share (compared with fourth-largest and 6.8% one year earlier). In the first six months of calendar 2014, Ubisoft was also the second-largest independent publisher in Europe with 15.7% market share (compared with third-largest and 8.8% one year earlier).”
