Back in 2012, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot suggested that the PC platform was terrible for business. He claimed that only five to seven percent of PC gamers paid for their games, with the platform’s piracy rate hovering around 93 to 95 percent. Now, six years later, Ubisoft’s financials are showing that most of its money actually comes from PC sales.
A breakdown of net bookings by platforms in the company’s Q1 2019-20 sales report shows the PC leading at 34 percent, a 10 percent increase from last year’s Q1 result. That was trailed by the PS4 at 31 percent (which declined by 7%) and Xbox at 18% (which declined by 4%).
Continued performance from Rainbow Six Siege and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey are noted as the biggest factors in beating the quarterly target. The first quarter of the financial year for Ubisoft runs from April through June, during which Ubisoft’s only major new release was Anno 1800 – a PC exclusive – and in a post-report conference call (noted by Dom on Twitter), the company attributes PC growth to both Anno and continued performance from other games.