Ubisoft smashes open super budget floodgates

UK video games chart body ChartTrack has predicted that top publishers will follow Ubisoft and re-release a slew of PC titles at a super budget price point.

The French firm this week sold a range of back catalogue titles through Asda for just £1. The games inundated the ChartTrack All Formats top 40 – with Rayman 2: The Great Escape, Brothers In Arms: Road To Hill 30 and Prince Of Persia: Sands Of Time all crashing into the top ten.

And ChartTrack believes that other labels will now be in  a hurry to re-release PC titles that are incompatible with Windows Vista – as the popularity of Microsoft’s new OS continues to rise.

“We can definitely see other publishers looking at the chart success of Grab It and now Ubisoft with these £1 games and following suit,” ChartTrack research analyst Adam Davis told MCV. “If I were a major games label and owned back catalogue titles that wouldn’t work with Vista, I’d be asking retailers if they would be interested in a similar deal.

“With Vista becoming more and more popular, publishers have a window to make the most of their back catalogue on PC. The Ubisoft titles are all recognisable franchises, and I imagine that other publishers will also capitalise by using brands that gamers know.”

Ubisoft was unavailable for comment.