As the games industry continues to consolidate, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot says the house of Assassin's Creed and Far Cry "can remain independent" but would review offers from other companies.
During Ubisoft's most recent earnings call, one attendee noted that the games industry has become a seller's market with many studios seeing high evaluations in massive deals such as Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard and Sony buying Bungie. Addressing Ubisoft's openness to potential acquisitions, Guillemot affirmed that the company isn't desperate for a buyer, but also isn't totally opposed to the idea.
"We are always making our decisions in the interest of our stakeholders, which are our employees, players, and shareholders," Guillemot said. "Ubisoft can remain independent. We have the talent, the industry scale, and a large portfolio of popular IP as you saw in the press release. Our IPs are sought after by the biggest global players in entertainment and tech. Adding to that, if there were an offer to buy us, the board of directors would of course review it in the interest of all stakeholders."
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Later in the call, Guillemot responded to a separate question asking why Ubisoft hasn't received any acquisition offers, simply affirming that "we will not speculate on why people haven't made an offer." When pressed on how the company may react if an offer was made, Guillemot maintained that he "can't comment on that any further."
Guillemot's comments are fairly neutral overall, though it is interesting to hear that Ubisoft is perfectly open to acquisition offers given its size. Throughout this call and the accompanying press release, Guillemot and other Ubisoft executives repeatedly stressed that its large stable of IP has enabled it to build a uniquely valuable "recurring" business strategy supported by evergreen releases like Assassin's Creed Valhalla and Rainbow Six Siege, which as positioned as part of the reason it "can remain independent."
"We are investing in promising new technologies, and we have increasing access to all distribution venues, platforms, geographies and business models leveraging the strength of our brands," Guillemot added in a statement.
Speaking of new platforms: last month, Ubisoft announced that its premium subscription service is coming to Xbox for its console debut after being PC-only for several years.
