On today’s Ubisoft FYQ2 earnings call, Ubisoft CFO Frederick Duguet dropped some new information about its ownership of Activision-Blizzard cloud streaming rights.
In previous earnings calls, the CFO had previously noted that they had begun booking revenue on their ownership of these rights – noting that they had already recouped the purchase costs. Duguet again confirmed this today:
In terms of streaming games from Activision, so as we had said last year, we started to monetize these rights in a meaningful manner, and we can continue to leverage that in the future.
For the first time, Duguet also provided a timeline for the games to arrive on Ubisoft’s own subscription service: Ubisoft+.
(In FY Q4, we expect) good growth from our subscription revenues on the back of the Assassin’s Creed Shadows release and the Activision Blizzard games coming to our streaming platform.
We expect the first (Activision) games to come to our subscription program (FY) Q4. So, we expect that will drive more traction for our overall offer.
Fiscal Year (FY) Quarter 4 (Q4) for Ubisoft is January 2025 – March 2025. So, we should start seeing these games arrive in the cloud as part of Ubisoft Plus offerings early next year.
More Questions than Answers
At this point, we still have more questions than answers…
- Will there be a price increase in Ubisoft+ to support these games?
- Will these launch alongside Ubisoft’s own first party cloud gaming offering that was tested in August?
- Will Ubisoft+ subscribers on Amazon Luna get access to these games?
- What about Ubisoft+ subscribers on GeForce NOW that only have access to PC versions of Ubisoft+ games (which will not include Activision titles)
All in all, the situation is a bit of a mess. It isn’t great for subscribers to have a bifurcated library with some but not all games available to play in the cloud and some but not all of the games available to install locally (including many of the most popular games)!
Then there is still the uncertainty about whether Activision titles will be available on Xbox Cloud Gaming for Game Pass Ultimate subscribers who’d like to access the titles without an additional subscription to Ubisoft+. We were pleasantly surprised when Call of Duty received Xcloud support, but other popular titles like Diablo IV still have not.
Unfortunately, the UK CMA’s decision to force the sale of Activision-Blizzard cloud gaming rights is still proving to have consequences that are less than consumer friendly.
