It's an Ubisoft World

It’s hard to ignore the success of Ubisoft. Eleven years ago near the launch of the Xbox, they were the house-that-Rayman built. A French company, founded in 1986 by the five Guillemot brothers, Ubisoft has risen rapidly in the last decade certainly as a publisher but especially as a developer. 

It’s clearest how far Ubisoft has risen when the last two years in particular are reflected upon. Ubisoft stole the 2012 E3 with Watch Dogs. A game that they had managed to keep under wraps until it was revealed to an awestruck crowd. The following year, this past June, Ubisoft wowed the audience with The Division, The Crew, and returning favorites Assassin’s Creed, Watch Dogs, and Splinter Cell.

The Informed Gamer

The big three have put forth their best foot forward in the new generation and mounting evidence suggests Microsoft stumbled again, Sony soared and Nintendo was ignored. Sony dominated on the PR battle, and rightly so. Although many of the same features derided on the Xbox One were present in the PS4, including but not limited to publisher-driven DRM and subscription-based online play, Sony managed to come out of its conference virtually unscathed. Add to the fact that many games that appeared to be exclusives, but were later shown to be multiplatform, were announced during Sony’s conference and you have a clear winner.

Sony managed to cut the Xbox One of at the knees with a $399 price point, but that doesn’t include the $60 PS Eye. In the short term, failure to include the webcam-esque device with every console works in Sony’s favor, but in the long-term the Xbox One is the smarter move. Not only does it remove doubt about Kinect from the developers mind it also maintains the promise of smart Kinect use. Like the dual sticks use from Halo on the original Xbox, all the Kinect 2.0 needs is that one brilliant game that uses the Kinect in a way that others will copy. Attach rates of peripherals are deemed high when they are around 33%, yet the Kinect is guaranteed to be owned by every Xbox One owner.