Speaking at the BMO Capital Markets digital entertainment conference, Guillemot did not offer specifics though he did peg the release for Trackmania 2 next year.

The company is also working on a Might & Magic called Heroes Kingdoms for early next year as a fantasy MMO.

Guillemot said the company is hard at work on casual games for Microsoft's project Natal and Sony's motion controller.

He pegged the company's big three release for the first quarter of next year as Splinter Cell Conviction, Red Steel 2 and RUSE.

Some of us, hurt countless times by bad ports, are finding it hard to open our hearts up once more to a potentially good movie based on a video game.

But Ubisoft chairman Yves Guillemot has no such reservations.

Speaking to a group of investors and industry executives in New York today at the BMO Capital Markets digital entertainment conference, Guillemot says he has very high hopes for the movie.

Among the highlights for Ubisoft next year, Stephen Totilo reports from the event, should be the Prince of Persia which "will show what a video game property can do in the (movie) industry... What we hear is that it could maybe be stronger than Pirates (of the Caribbean) which did 2.7 billion dollars worldwide."

The Nite to Unite for Kids is an annual event presented by the Entertainment Software Association and hosted by the ESA Foundation that raises money for children's charities. It's also a night to celebrate gaming luminaries like Shigeru Miyamoto, Howard Lincoln, Ken Kutaragi, and George Lucas. Now Yves Guillemot joins their ranks. ESA president and CEO Michael Gallagher explains why.

"Yves saw the potential of computer and video games long before most and worked diligently to translate that vision into reality. His company, whose name is derived from ‘ubiquity' in reference to their ambition to make games worldwide, has not only achieved that goal but surpassed it."

Since 1999, the Nite to Unite for Kids event has raised more than $11 million for children's charities. This year's event will take place on Tuesday, October 13th at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco. For more information, visit the event's official web page.

On a call to address the company's financial performance and explain the delays of four upcoming games, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot was asked to describe his company's game line-up for next year.

Responding to a financial analyst who asked about the coming year's games, Guillemot said:

We have a very good lineup for next year… We have lots of products that are coming from the brands we own. You will see lots of follow-ups to the brands that are already established. We think you will also be able to see some elements concerning the Assassin's Creed license.

Assuming the question referred to Ubisoft's next fiscal year, this plan would kick in in the 12 months starting on April 1, 2010.

No clarification on what those "elements" will be was provided.

The original Assassin's Creed launched in late 2007. A DS game was released in 2008. A console sequel and an original PSP game are slated for release this year. From Guillemot's comments, it appears that Ubisoft intends to continue delivering some sort of Assassin's Creed product annually.

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Guillemot, according to a report from CNBC, estimates video game budgets will "average $60 million to make" next gen, when Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo issue successors to the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii.

The Ubisoft head honcho says that Ubisoft's plan to help defray some of those costs would be to reuse computer generated assets from Hollywood features, something the company says it's doing with James Cameron's Avatar.

The prospect of $60 million game budgets sounds suspect, given the game buying public's acceptance of the Wii's generational half-step in terms of visual computing power. I'm not running Ubisoft obviously, but wouldn't be surprised to see Microsoft and Sony (and Nintendo) make similarly shorter next gen leaps with their hardware.

The Next Generation of Gaming Consoles [CNBC]

Yves Guillemot crossed his name off the list of people who have yet to predict that Apple will become a bigger player in gaming hardware today. He did that as part of his explanation about how he thinks the home console market is going to transform gaming as we know it.

"There's also a new entrant in the business," he said, after riffing off the looming gaming potential of set-top boxes. "[That entrant is] Apple, with the iPhone. And we don't think they will stop there."

Guillemot made the comments about Apple during Ubisoft's conference call to report the company's finanicial results for its fiscal year ended in March. The head of the company behind hits such as Assassin's Creed and Splinter Cell has repeatedly addresses the topic of the next generation of consoles in these earnings costs. He touched on it again, when asked by a financial analyst on the call: "We will see more customers coming to the video game industry .. they will start also to come under the boxes you see under the TV because those TV boxes will be more powerful.. We will see more consoles on which we will be able to put products. As for the next generation of consoles we can't give you a date but from what we see there is a lot of energy to improve the consoles [that are out now.] We are already working on some of the elements that will appeal in the next generation."

The allusion to the impending importance of gaming via set-top boxes prompted a follow-up question from an anlyst, and this produced more specificity about why the devices like cable boxes might begin to be discussed in the same breath as Xboxes and Wii: "You saw new interfaces with the Wiimote and also with the DS with the stylus," Guillemot said. "What we see for the future is they will also be big announcement in interfaces. It will not only happen in consoles but also happen on those TV boxes as well."

And right after that, Guillemot made his remark about Apple.

One of Guillemot's older brothers, Michel, runs GameLoft, one of the most aggressive developers of games for Apple's iPhone.

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Responding to a question on growing trends in the games industry, Guillemot singled out both fitness games and lowered console prices before expertly tying the two points together.

"We will see a real growth of the high-end consoles because they will go down in price. We will also see more fitness products sold. It's a genre that is growing fast. And I think that the market will grow really if hardware machines are down in terms of price."

Guillemot's interest in the fitness genre isn't merely prurient, of course, with the CEO indicating that Ubisoft would have a new fitness product to show off in a few days. Nice to see a company saving some of their secrets for E3.

The company expects new consoles in probably 2~3 years.

What's more, the French publisher is gearing up for these new consoles by increasing its headcount. This comes as hardware makers Sony and Microsoft are decreasing their headcounts.

"We want to take advantage of a company that could bring more technology to us, or new brands," said CEO Yves Guillemot. So we have now enough to help us to grow the company for not only next year but to get ready for the coming of the next generation consoles that are probably going to happen 2011, 2012... We have to be ready for that, we are already hiring people and buying some technology and looking at some brands as well."

Ubisoft is acquiring a new sports property, and plans to invest more in the sports category in the wake of the success of new IP Shaun White's Snowboarding.

Success or not, hiring in this economic climate doesn't exactly seem prudent. But maybe Ubisoft believes that glass of game industry milk is half-full. Drink up, Yves Guillemot!

Ubisoft ramping up for new generation of consoles in 2012 [GamesIndustry via Eurogamer] [Pic]

"We just bought it from them since those guys have Blizzard so they didn't need that studio as much as we do, and those guys are extremely strong in RTS (real-time strategy), so they are going to help us also get closer to the MMO space. Our goal there is to go first with light MMOs...that have been extremely popular in China but are also coming in the U.S. and Europe and are generating lots of good revenue, so our goal is first to start with light MMOs, and then in the future also come with RPG and RTS, also in the MMO space."

See, you can't just toss out any old MMORPG. You have to build to that. I'm sure whatever they come up with will be just lovely with the Massive team on the job.

Nintendo has been working on that for a long time, trying to see how they could improve the precision. We knew for a long time they were working on that, so it’s not a big surprise for us. We’ll start seeing something in September/October. We already have games that can take advantage of it.

Got any questions about what Nintendo is up to, who's going to win the World Series or where babies come from? Ask Yves. Dude's a Gallic soothsayer.

Interview: Ubisoft CEO [Game Daily via Go Nintendo]

Our goal is to create a studio that will be very high quality, our goal is to try to get to the level of quality of Peter Jackson's Weta studio. We have been working to train people, to recruit highly talented people and we are in test mode at the moment. We are going to make sure that we get to the level of Weta. We have a long way to go but in getting to that level will help us to actually be one of the studios where everybody has to go.

We don't need to be always making the movie but what we have to do is make sure that what's necessary for our games is done close to us so we can reuse assets. Or we can have a specific relationship with a director who is going to do 3D imaging in such a way that we can also use them in our games. That is how we will improve the quality of our games, by giving our consumers a lot more than what we can give them today.

And hey, as movies use more and more CG and the level of game CG improves, stuff like this really makes sense.

Guillemot To Transform Ubisoft [Games Industry]

We saw with Beyond Good & Evil that so many customers were extremely happy with the game. We had a different audience at that time. We had more core gamers than casual gamers than we have today.

We think the game was probably a little too difficult for the general gamers at that time. We’re going to make it more accessible and make sure that it’s really done for the new generation that’s come into videogames.

Casual? Accessible? Oh, Yves, you sure know how to put the fear of God into a man. I'd have thought the first game's problem was it was a game about a photographer with green lips and a pig, which makes it a hard sell to most people, but what do I know.

Ubi: Beyond Good & Evil 2 More "Casual" [Next-Gen]

Ubisoft also credited a "sharp ramp-up" of its Games For Everyone casual range, which includes Jam Sessions, My Word Coach and My Life Coach, among others, for its profit climb, along with successful launches for Assassin's Creed and its Imagine DS titles for girls.

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said the company now has 14 franchises with unit sales in the multimillions, and plans to launch five new IPs in addition to new casual brands. "Going forward, 2008-09 is set to be another record year for Ubisoft," said Guillemot.

Those new things are going to be successful in the future and we'll continue to create new brands for the machine. Compared with other publishers, the difference was going early as well as the huge amount of creativity we channel into the machine.

Guillemot is talking about adding more casual games to the product
line, as well as licensed games, including six new brands.

Tony Key, the USA V.P. of Marketing takes the stage, to show off the
new games and—argh!—talk about the expansion of the games
industry. They're new strategy is called "Games for Everyone," with a
"three prong strategy" with three new games.

Petz: The #2 pet simulation band behind Nintendogs. Everyone is
wondering if there are any other pet simulation brands. There are four
games: Horsez, Dogz, Catz, Hamsterz, and more Animalz are expected
later. Of course, they aren't even showing the games, just showing the
covers. Apparently there will be Dolphinz and Tigerz games, which for
some reason causes everyone to titter about playing with wild pets.
Yiff ahoy!

The next line is "Imagine" games, made for six to fourteen year old
girls. "Fashion Designer," "Master Chef," "Animal Doctor" (some call
this a "veterinarian"), and "Figure Skater." They're all lifestyle
simulation games aimed toward young girls. Please leave a stack of
these in the back of my panel van as bait.

The "MyCoach" line is Ubi's shadowing (yet again) of Nintendo for the
DS. Key tripped on his words when he showed "MyWord Coach," but
recovered. "The game's not out yet."

Other titles: MySpanish Coach, MyFrench Coach, MyLife Coach. The
latter: "Your personal Dr. Phil. ... Guilt will get you where you want
to go; so will MyLife Coach." I love how brutal Key is about their
target demographics.

I think Ubi's strategy of building casual gaming brands is really on
point, so hopefully the games will be, you know, good. We haven't
actually seen them.

He's now showing off...the cover of "Jam Sessions," their entry into
the music/rhythm market. I think this was a Japanese release that they
just are distributing in the States, but I'm glad they're promoting.
He's now playing a copy of the game with a DS plugged into a Marshall
stack. We can't actually see the screen. He's loaded up the chords for
Tom Petty's "Free Falling." The chords abbreviate a little to quickly,
making it sound very, I dunno, fake. But it's still a neat toy. I look
forward to buying it on a discount rack.

"I'm not Peter Moore. I know that." I don't get the joke, but
everybody lost it, so I pass it on to you.

Now they're showing the video of the band "Taking Back Sunday" having
a hotel room jam session using, you know, Jam Sessions. It is cute.

Yay, video of new games! Rock soundtrack. Rayman Raving Rabbids: looks
funny, of course. Naruto: Rise of the Ninja, cell-shaded Naruto game.
(I need to watch Naruto someday.) Tom Clancy's Splinet Cell:
Conviction. Tom Clancy's Endwar. (Who would have thought 15 years ago
Tom Clancy would be such a brand in videogames?) CSI: Hard Evidence.
Beowulf: The Game. (Which I think Crecente toldme is a movie tie-in.)
LOST: The game. (But no screenshots, just game footage?)

Now they're giving Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway a special demo.
Col John Antal from Gearbox Software tromps onto the stage. He's, uh,
creepy? He makes the crowd yell "Everybody fights; nobody quits;
something something attack." Fuck you, buddy. I don't particularly
want to yell. Now the President of Gearbox is up on stage. Thank fuck
I do not work with "the Colonel."

The squad controls are all context sensitive, so you don't really have
to do anything but point at the ground where you want them to go or
the enemies you want them to go. I mean, it looks great and
everything, but it's still another WWII game, and I do not feel a
problem at all whining about that.

One thing I do like is how bright it looks. It must have sucked to
fight a battle on a beautiful, sunny day.

When you shoot a fence it actually breaks at the point where the
bullet enters. That is pretty rad.

The way these guys present their game is interesting. They're really
acting like they're really into the game. "Whoa!" "Crazy!"
"That was awesome!" It's a sort of annoying to see the edges of their
artifice, but I don't know if I'd rather have them be the traditional
blase thing.

New Wii exclusive title: Nitro Bikes. They're showing a gameplay
trailer. The music is all xylophone and then... metal and crazy
destruction etc. Looks a lot like Excite Truck with jet-powered dirt
bikes. Controls with the same sideways Wiimote position as Excite
Truck, too. Available holiday '07. Online play up to six players.

"Haze," a PS3 exclusive for this holiday. David Doak from Free Radical
design takes the stage. He's a Brit and has a sharp shirt and a trim
beard. He looks like a retired wizard. I want to smoke pipes with him.

He's talking about the plot, including "Nectar," a
performance-enhancing drug. I wish someone would do a comparison of
all the future warrior heroes that have existed over the last few
years, with Halo Spartans next to Haze warriors next to Fracture
fighters.

Haze is extremely generic looking, but the Timesplitters franchise got
a lot of love, if not great sales, so it's worth keeping an eye on,
for sure. I just have the gut feeling Haze is going to be another
Resistance: a perfectly decent FPS but nothing particularly
interesting.

Christ, my Macbook Pro battery is about dead already. Time to buy a
new battery, I'm afraid.

Jade Raymond and Patrice Desilets are taking the stage to show off
Assassin's Creed. They're showing a live demo of the game, similar but
slightly longer than the one shown at Microsoft's presser a couple of
nights ago. There's not much to say about this game that you probably
haven't already heard. It looks fantastic.

I really hope they take advantage of the Jerusalem setting and do more
than making a generic Middle Eastern "afendi!" thing.

Huh, one character referred to the protagonist using the term
"hashashim," I believe. If they add an Old Mna of the Mountain theme
into the game that could be pretty interesting. I wonder if they'll
extrapolate that out to the futuristic stuff, where you're somehow
working for the Illuminati—and if the bonus stages will be the
Garden of Delight.

Yeah, they just talked about "Brotherhood," etc. That's totally got to
be part of the plot.

Okay, that's it. Lunch time! –Joel Johnson

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot? Rich. He could buy and sell you and me. Still, Yves cares about money and even asked for a PS3 price cut a while back. But that was a while back! What does he think about the PLAYSTATION 3's price-tag now?

[Sony has] sold a machine that is actually expensive to build at the right price for consumers. It's just that if we want more consumers, we'll have to have a price that will make more people come in.

Yves Interview [Games Industry]

In a recent interview, Ubisoft president Yves Guillemot offers these insightful chestnuts:

• "I think next Christmas will really be key. In January 2008, we will have a really good idea of who is going to win in this generation."
• "For sure, Nintendo and Microsoft will play a bigger role than in the last cycle."
• "I think Sony has a very strong brand, so if they are capable of coming with enough machines in Europe when they launch, they will be able to sell very well. But for sure, it's not good for them to be there this Christmas."

Wow. Yves Guillemot is a very smart man. Brian Ashcraft

Ubisoft Prez Speaks [Games Industry]

Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in this Eurogamer interview, asserting that his company is from the future and therefore makes superior games than competitors:

I think it's our investment in the next-gen consoles. We invest more in the next-gen consoles than our competitors so we will create better quality games.

But as one commentor on the interview video says, Guillemot is "very good at saying nothing in a language that isn't his own."

Interspersed with footage from the oh-my-god-look-at-all-this-stupid-blinking-shit E3 show floor, the interview features a lot of percentages (25% movie franchise games for next year, 7% expected drop in market share, EA purchasing 20% of Ubi last year) and assertions of future growth. Eliza gauger

Watch interview here [Eurogamer]