Ubisoft responds to buyout reports

Last week ended off on some major Ubisoft news, as it emerged that the company was in talks to sell and potentially take itself off the stock market. In response to those reports, Ubisoft has issued its own statement. 

According to Bloomberg's sources, Ubisoft executives are in talks to sell, potentially to the China-based mega-publisher, Tencent.

Tencent first acquired a minority stake in Ubisoft several years ago, as part of an effort to ward off a hostile takeover from former Activision Blizzard parent company, Vivendi.

Due to the string of poorly received titles, Ubisoft's board of directors ordered a complete review of the company, in which it will aim to find out why the quality of games has taken such a turn.

In the meantime, Ubisoft has responded to last week's buyout reports, telling Eurogamer that the company “regularly reviews all its strategic options in the interest of its stakeholders”. With that said, the spokesperson also reiterated that “management is currently focused on executing its strategy”, which isn't all that different from what Ubisoft has already been doing – focusing on open-world and Games as a Service.

KitGuru Says: Ubisoft had been on a decline in the mid 2010s, but managed to save itself around 2018. Things have fallen off considerably since then, once again. At this stage, I think Ubisoft needs a clearout at the top level, making room for someone with a finger on the pulse of the games market to take things over. So far, the strategy of open-world single-player games and GaaS hasn't worked out. 

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