Ubisoft Plans Heavy Support For Natal

Amidst news of a more than 78 million euro loss for the quarter, Ubisoft has made public its plans to release 10 titles supporting Natal within 6 months of Microsoft’s ambitious relaunch initiative. On their quarterly earnings call with investors this morning (via Leigh Alexander at Gamasutra), CEO Yves Guillemot signaled Ubisoft’s commitment to Natal, stating "We have around 10 games that will come for Natal during the first six months of the launch of Natal, and we expect between four to five games for the new controller [from] Sony.”

While this more or less confirms that Microsoft is aiming at a fiscal third quarter launch for Natal in 2010, more interesting is the confidence Ubisoft seems to have in the project. Guillemot cited an unpredictable third party market on Nintendo’s casual friendly Wii as primarily responsible for their financial losses for Q3, yet made clear that a majority of Ubisoft’s Natal releases will be aimed at a casual audience. This indicates a belief at Ubisoft that the ecosystem for third party titles in the casual market will be more hospitable on Microsoft’s console than on the Wii, to say nothing of Ubisoft’s significantly less developed plans for Sony’s own motion control peripheral, set to release in the Spring of next year.

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