With Microsoft shopping for Activision Blizzard (so as to add to Zenimax Media and the numerous different studios and publishers Microsoft owns), Take-Two shopping for Zynga, Embracer Group shopping for Gearbox Leisure, and Sony shopping for Bungie (with Sony CEO Jim Ryan saying to count on extra of the identical), it has been a season of consolidation within the videogame business. Based on a report by Bloomberg, Ubisoft may very well be subsequent.
“A number of non-public fairness companies together with Blackstone Inc. and KKR & Co. have been finding out the French enterprise,” in keeping with Bloomberg’s nameless sources, who additionally mentioned, “Ubisoft hasn’t entered into any critical negotiations with potential acquirers, and it is unclear whether or not its main shareholder is prepared to pursue a deal”.
This report’s veracity was backed up by Kotaku, whose sources amongst Ubisoft builders, each present and former, claimed that “the corporate will finally promote to somebody amid a flagging inventory worth and ongoing manufacturing struggles.”
The writer of Murderer’s Creed and Far Cry actually has issues—in keeping with an Axios report from December, Ubisoft has shed staff at an alarming fee due to low pay, points with its inventive route, higher alternatives elsewhere, and widespread office abuse. Just lately, a Ubisoft worker group referred to as out firm management for failing to deal with these points. However being taken over by a personal fairness agency, which might lay off staff and push the French writer even additional into trend-chasing cynicism than its unsuccessful dabbling in NFTs, would not be a lot of an enchancment.
Yesterday Ubisoft formally introduced Challenge Q, a multiplayer shooter that’s presently in early growth. It then needed to follow-up the announcement on Twitter with replies explaining that, no, it is not a battle royale, and no, there are no plans to add NFTs.
In 2016, Ubisoft managed to move off a hostile takeover by Vivendi, which finally offered the final of its shares in 2019.
