Ubisoft plans to dominate Kinect and develop fewer games

7 October 2010

At a Ubisoft press conference held in San Francisco, Ubisoft North America president Laurent Detoc shared the company’s broad strategy for the future. Kinect tops the list, as Ubisoft plans to become the dominant third party developer for the motion control device.

“I think that today is a pretty good testament that Kinect is going to do pretty well, because today is an event only about Kinect. That’s a statement about how we think it’s going to do,” said Detoc.

Speaking to Gamasutra in a post press conference interview, Detoc said that time and the strength of their gaming product brands will be the deciding factor for Ubisoft’s successful push for Kinect dominance.

“I think we are in a good position because we have solid tech; we have a lot of R&D that has generated a lot of prototypes. We’re only making like half a dozen games; we could have made like 12. There’s a right balance to have,” explained Detoc.

“At the end of the day, what I really like about [Kinect], is that it’s just really obvious to me that it is a big innovation in a place where innovation was yet to find its limits, which is interactivity. Playing without a controller is just an improvement on the [gaming] experience,” said Detoc.

Detoc also thinks that Microsoft has what it takes to drive Kinect sales, a device which he thinks has a ‘cool’ factor working in its favour. Cool factor aside, Microsoft has the monetary clout to market the Kinect.

As for Ubisoft’s future strategy, Detoc makes it clear that the company is in the business of developing entertainment brands, and not simply in the business of making games. This means “less games, more depth,” said Detoc.

The full interview on Gamasutra provides more insight into Ubisoft’s business strategy.

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