Ubisoft claims Euro Kinect dominance

Ubisoft is Kinect’s most successful third-party publisher in EMEA, the company has told MCV.

The publisher’s trio of Kinect games – Your Shape: Fitness Evolved, Motion Sports and Fighters Uncaged – has given the firm a 20 per cent market share on Microsoft’s motion controller.

The news follows NPD’s US data, which revealed Ubisoft is also No.1 on Kinect in North America.

We are just behind Microsoft, and the difference between us and third place is huge,” said Ubisoft’s chief marketing and sales officer Geoffroy Sardin.

It is in our DNA at Ubisoft to be the first and best on new technology. In 2008 we were already working with PrimeSense – the technology used by Microsoft on its 3D camera – even before Xbox acquired the technology. So this gave us a definitive competitive advantage on the platform.

This is only the beginning for us. We will be bringing some of the industry’s most innovative offerings to Kinect soon, starting with Michael Jackson: The Experience on April 15th.”

Sardin also revealed that Ubisoft was the most successful third-party Wii publisher over Christmas, thanks to big sales of Just Dance 2 and Wii/PSP Michael Jackson. Both sold over 7m units worldwide.

Now the company is turning its attention to the next big new technology launch, Nintendo 3DS.

Sardin added: We are already showing a strong commitment to 3DS, with five games announced during E3. We will announce more games in the weeks ahead and the aim is to be No.1 over launch.”