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When Ubisoft software is installed a product registration [[application]] called "PRegScheduler MFC Application" is copied as "PowerReg Scheduler.exe" outside of its specified installation directories. It is placed directly in the Startup folder rather than linking to the Ubisoft folder. PowerReg Scheduler.exe may show up as "PowerREGISTER" in your task list. Examination of the programs properties shows the "Company Name" to be blank, even though the rest of the property information is available. The inability to identify this application by installation directory or by company information has resulted in reports of alarm that an unknown program by an unidentified company has been placed in their startup folder for unknown purpose.<ref>[http://forums.techguy.org/t221672.html Technical information on PRegScheduler]</ref>
When Ubisoft software is installed a product registration [[application]] called "PRegScheduler MFC Application" is copied as "PowerReg Scheduler.exe" outside of its specified installation directories. It is placed directly in the Startup folder rather than linking to the Ubisoft folder. PowerReg Scheduler.exe may show up as "PowerREGISTER" in your task list. Examination of the programs properties shows the "Company Name" to be blank, even though the rest of the property information is available. The inability to identify this application by installation directory or by company information has resulted in reports of alarm that an unknown program by an unidentified company has been placed in their startup folder for unknown purpose.<ref>[http://forums.techguy.org/t221672.html Technical information on PRegScheduler]</ref>


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In July 2008 it was revealed that a patch for [[Rainbow Six: Vegas 2]] which allowed users to play without a cd used code stolen from a third party hack.<ref>[http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/1991064316/m/1381029176/p/1 R6Vegas2_Fix.zip is the same as the ReLoaded no-dvd crack - Topic Powered by eve community<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref><ref>[http://fileforums.com/showthread.php?p=359340 Rainbow Six Vegas 2 v1.03 - FileForums<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>
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Intitially Ubisoft announced that they would be releasing 7 titles for the launch of the console and emphasised the fact that they "believed in the Wii". <ref>[http://uk.wii.ign.com/articles/723/723081p1.html Wii IGN iterviews Laurent Detoc<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

None of their Wii launch titles has received an aggregate score of 80% or above from Gamerankings
⚫
Intitially Ubisoft announced that they would be releasing 7 titles for the launch of the Wii and emphasised the fact that "Ubisoft believes in the Wii". <ref>[http://uk.wii.ign.com/articles/723/723081p1.html Wii IGN iterviews Laurent Detoc<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> None of their Wii launch titles has received an aggregate score of 80% or above from Gamerankings


During Ubidays 2008 they announced a slew of low budget casual titles for the Nintendo Wii. This was in stark contrast to
During Ubidays 2008 they announced a slew of low budget casual titles for the Nintendo Wii. This was in stark contrast to
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To date they have only released one internally developed title with an aggregate score of 80% or above. That title is Pippa Funnell: Ranch Rescue which received the score from an average of 1 review. <ref>[http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/CompanyDetails.asp?sort=4 Wii Games| Gamerankings | Ubisoft<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>
To date they have only released one internally developed title with an aggregate score of 80% or above. That title is Pippa Funnell: Ranch Rescue which received the score from an average of 1 review. <ref>[http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/CompanyDetails.asp?sort=4 Wii Games| Gamerankings | Ubisoft<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

⚫
In July 2008 it was revealed that a patch for [[Rainbow Six: Vegas 2]] which allowed users to play without a cd used code stolen from a third party hack.<ref>[http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/1991064316/m/1381029176/p/1 R6Vegas2_Fix.zip is the same as the ReLoaded no-dvd crack - Topic Powered by eve community<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref><ref>[http://fileforums.com/showthread.php?p=359340 Rainbow Six Vegas 2 v1.03 - FileForums<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>


==Lawsuits==
==Lawsuits==

Revision as of 17:58, 11 October 2008

Ubisoft Entertainment S.A.
Company typePublic
IndustryInteractive entertainment
Founded1986
HeadquartersMontreuil-sous-Bois, France

Bucureşti, România

Montreal, Canada
Key people
Yves Guillemot, CEO
Yannis Mallat, CEO of Montreal Studio
Michel Ancel, Game Designer
ProductsAssassin's Creed
Blazing Angels
Brothers in Arms
Far Cry
Myst
Prince of Persia
Rayman
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell
Revenue€538 million sales FY2004-05
€41.4 million
€27.2 million FY 2004-05 (before goodwill amortization)
Total assets3,604,841,000 Euro (2020) Edit this on Wikidata
Number of employees
Over 3500, 1760 in production tasks at the 20/01/2005
Websitewww.ubi.com
www.ubisoftgroup.com

Ubisoft Entertainment (formerly Ubi Soft) (Euronext: UBI) is a French computer and video game publisher and developer with headquarters in Montreuil-sous-Bois, France. The company has facilities in over 20 countries, with studios in Montreal and Québec City, Quebec, Canada; Bucharest, Romania; Barcelona, Spain; Shanghai, Chengdu, China; Singapore; North Carolina, USA; Düsseldorf, Germany; Sofia, Bulgaria; Casablanca, Morocco; Sydney, Australia; Milan, Italy ; Pune, India and São Paulo, Brazil amongst other locations.

As of 2004, it was the third-largest independent video game publisher in Europe, and the seventh largest in the United States. Ubisoft's revenue for 2002-2003 was €453 million; for fiscal year 2003-2004, this grew to €508 million. As of 2005, Ubisoft employed more than 3,500 people, of which over 1,700 are classed as working in production. The company's largest development studio is Ubisoft Montreal, which in 2004 employed approximately 1,600 people.[1] Yves Guillemot, a founding brother, was the chairman and CEO.

Ubisoft Romania is the headquarters of the Eastern Europe developing studios, with over 400 people, and rising. The Bucharest studio is known for games like Blazing Angels, Silent Hunter, and the more recent Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.

Ubisoft Australia also distribute Square Enix's games due to Square Enix not having an Australian presence [citation needed].

The correct pronunciation of the company name is you-be-soft, though it is also commonly mispronounced oo-be-soft.[2]

History

The five brothers of the Guillemot family founded Ubisoft as a computer game publisher in 1986 in France (Brittany). Yves Guillemot soon made deals with Electronic Arts, Sierra On-Line, and MicroProse to distribute their games in France. By the end of the decade, Ubisoft began expanding to other markets, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany.

In the early 1990s, Ubisoft initiated its in-house game development program which led to the 1994 opening of a studio in Montreuil, France, which later became their headquarters. Ubisoft became a publicly traded company in 1996 and continued to expand to offices around the globe, opening locations in Shanghai and Montreal.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Ubisoft committed itself to online games by getting behind Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, The Matrix Online, and the European and Chinese operation of EverQuest. The publisher established ubi.com as its online division. However, in February 2004, Ubisoft cancelled the online portion of Uru and backed out of the publishing deal on The Matrix Online. Nevertheless, a mere week later, the company announced its acquisition of Wolfpack Studios, developer of Shadowbane.

In December 2004, a rival game corporation Electronic Arts purchased a 19.9% stake in the firm, an action Ubisoft referred to as "hostile" on EA's part.[3]

In March 2005, Ubisoft acquired part of MC2-Microïds (Microïds Canada) and integrated it into their Ubisoft Montreal.[4]

In July 2006 Ubisoft also bought the Driver franchise from Atari for a sum of €19 million (USD$24 million) in cash for the franchise, technology rights, and most asset. Additionally, though Ubisoft is not acquiring the studio outright, the members of Driver developer Reflections Interactive became employees of Ubisoft. As a result, Reflections Interactive was subsequently renamed Ubisoft Reflections.

On 11 April 2007, Ubisoft announced that it had acquired German game developer Sunflowers,[5] followed by an acquisition of Japanese developer Digital Kids that November.[6]

Ubisoft is also responsible for publishing famous franchises produced by other important studios for some specific platforms, such as Resident Evil 4 for PC, which is a Capcom's production, and Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon for Playstation 2 and Harvest Moon Online, which are a Marvelous Interactive's production.

Subsidiaries

See also: Ubisoft Montreal, Ubisoft Romania, and Ubisoft Reflections

Singapore

In August 2008, Ubisoft's 1818 studio was opened in Singapore. Ubisoft cited the Singapore government's demonstrated interest and support for the video game industry, together with other factors such as the quality of the universities and training institutions, as reasons for opening a studio there. Ubisoft Singapore is focused on developing their own game titles.[7]

India

Ubisoft has also announced plans for expansion into India after many years of ignoring the market. The publisher has bought out the Pune Gameloft studio, which will focus on porting games to the current generation of handhelds.[8]

Games

Main article: List of Ubisoft games

Upcoming games

2008

2009

Unknown date

Upcoming motion pictures

Controversies

Ubisoft had, for a time, used the controversial StarForce copy protection technology that installs hidden drivers on a system and is known to cause some hardware problems and compatibility issues with certain operating systems, starting with the game Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, which was not compatible with Windows XP Professional x64 Edition for quite some time until a patch was released by the makers of StarForce.[9] On 14 April 2006, Ubisoft confirmed that they would stop using StarForce on their games citing complaints from customers.[10]

In the February 2008 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, Editor-in-Chief, Dan “Shoe” Hsu, asserted that Ubisoft had ceased to provide all Ubisoft titles to the EGM for any coverage purposes as a result of prior critical previews and negative reviews.[11][12]

When Ubisoft software is installed a product registration application called "PRegScheduler MFC Application" is copied as "PowerReg Scheduler.exe" outside of its specified installation directories. It is placed directly in the Startup folder rather than linking to the Ubisoft folder. PowerReg Scheduler.exe may show up as "PowerREGISTER" in your task list. Examination of the programs properties shows the "Company Name" to be blank, even though the rest of the property information is available. The inability to identify this application by installation directory or by company information has resulted in reports of alarm that an unknown program by an unidentified company has been placed in their startup folder for unknown purpose.[13]

In July 2008 it was revealed that a patch for Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 which allowed users to play without a cd used code stolen from a third party hack.[14][15]

Intitially Ubisoft announced that they would be releasing 7 titles for the launch of the Wii and emphasised the fact that "Ubisoft believes in the Wii". [16] None of their Wii launch titles has received an aggregate score of 80% or above from Gamerankings

During Ubidays 2008 they announced a slew of low budget casual titles for the Nintendo Wii. This was in stark contrast to

the big budget, high quality titles they announced for HD systems. [17]

To date they have only released one internally developed title with an aggregate score of 80% or above. That title is Pippa Funnell: Ranch Rescue which received the score from an average of 1 review. [18]

Lawsuits

In 2008, Ubisoft sued Optical Experts Manufacturing (OEM), a DVD Duplication company for $20,000,000+ damages for the leak and distribution of its Assassins Creed PC game. The lawsuit claims that OEM didn’t take proper measures to protect its product as stated in its contract with Ubisoft. The complaint also alleges that OEM admitted to all the problems in the complaint.[19]

See also

References

  1. ^ French, Michael (7 February 2007). "Ubisoft Montreal to become world's biggest studio". Develop Magazine. Retrieved 2007-11-01.
  2. ^ "How To Pronounce… "Ubisoft" (The Official Explanation)". MTV. Retrieved 2008-05-02.
  3. ^ Feldman, Curt (20 December 2004). "Electronic Arts buys stake in Ubisoft in "hostile" act". Gamespot. Retrieved 2007-11-09.
  4. ^ "Ubisoft Montreal enters into an agreement to acquire Microids Canada's development operations". Ubisoft. 2 March 2005. Retrieved 2007-11-09.
  5. ^ "Ubisoft Acquires SunFlowers, Anno Franchise". Gamasutra. 11 April 2007. Retrieved 2007-04-12.
  6. ^ "Ubisoft Buys Japanese Studio". GameTab. 5 November 2007. Retrieved 2007-11-05.
  7. ^ Q & A with Ubisoft Singapore Managing Director Olivier de Rotalier
  8. ^ Boyes, Emma (April 15, 2008). "Ubisoft orders Indian takeaway". GameSpot. Retrieved 2008-09-11.
  9. ^ StarForce website page about patch
  10. ^ Ubisoft officially dumps Starforce
  11. ^ 3 Companies Bar EGM From Coverage Following Poor Reviews
  12. ^ "Banned", Dan "Shoe" Hsu's blog at 1UP.com
  13. ^ Technical information on PRegScheduler
  14. ^ R6Vegas2_Fix.zip is the same as the ReLoaded no-dvd crack - Topic Powered by eve community
  15. ^ Rainbow Six Vegas 2 v1.03 - FileForums
  16. ^ Wii IGN iterviews Laurent Detoc
  17. ^ Ubidays 2008 Recap | Destructoid
  18. ^ Wii Games| Gamerankings | Ubisoft
  19. ^ ubisoft vs OEM

External links

Template:Companies portal

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