Ubi seems open to buyout

[Johnny Awesome]

I know it was going on. I just wonder if the market at large was abusing it enough for it to be a big factor in the DC's cancellation.

 

[Nesh]

I know it was going on. I just wonder if the market at large was abusing it enough for it to be a big factor in the DC's cancellation.

I think the DC future was more sensitive to hacking because every penny was important for Sega but its a combination of things. Burning pirated games on the DC was extremely easy. You just needed a bootup disc and a ripped game. Later the boot up was burned with the pirated game. Sales were flattening as the PS2 was becoming a thing. Revenue was plametting. EA abandoned the Dreamcast and Sega, formerly known for being the cool console for sports games became the console that didnt have the official sport licenses. The controller was a mess for modern gaming too. A great deal of games on the DC were arcade ports but console gaming evolved beyond such experiences since the Saturn.

 

[see colon]

I do wonder if the hacking was really a thing for most people though. No DC owner I knew bothered with most of that stuff. Sega just knew they were getting murdered by PS2.

My opinion on this has always been that it didn't change Sega's fate. Sure, I'm sure there were some lost sales. But other media formats that were easily duplicated, like cassettes and even CDs at the time, were successful and the easily pirated nature of the media didn't kill it. What killed CD sales was the convenience of digital distribution, not the fact that the music was distributed digitally illegally at first. I think even without piracy, the Dreamcast would have sill been overshadowed by newer hardware. Not just PS2, but Xbox and Gamecube. There simply isn't room for 4 players in the market fighting for the same space. And we've seen that 2 might actually be the best, with a third player going their own way.

Even if the software was easily pirated, you still had to buy a Dreamcast to play those games. If everyone was just pirating games, why didn't the hardware sell better?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Wow, how has a stock answer to a question blown up to so much speculation?

In any kind of Q&A scenarios, if you're asked any kind of open question that you do not have a specific answer to, this is the answer you you deploy unless it's objective bad, like "do you support nazis?".

"Would you consider X?" and no matter what X is you answer "Z is the situation now. We have no plans but are open to this and will review anything." :neutral:

"Ubisoft can remain independent. Our IPs are sought after by the biggest global players in entertainment and tech," he said. "Having said that, if there were an offer to buy us, the board of directors would of course review it in the interest of all stakeholders."

What, you say Ubisoft are not going to dismiss anything without reviewing it first? No sh!t.

 

[BRiT]

Wow, how has a stock answer to a question blown up to so much speculation?

Exactly what I pointed out earlier, and yet everyone keeps wanting to talk about other matters. The dream is more alluring than reality.

 

[eastmen]

My opinion on this has always been that it didn't change Sega's fate. Sure, I'm sure there were some lost sales. But other media formats that were easily duplicated, like cassettes and even CDs at the time, were successful and the easily pirated nature of the media didn't kill it. What killed CD sales was the convenience of digital distribution, not the fact that the music was distributed digitally illegally at first. I think even without piracy, the Dreamcast would have sill been overshadowed by newer hardware. Not just PS2, but Xbox and Gamecube. There simply isn't room for 4 players in the market fighting for the same space. And we've seen that 2 might actually be the best, with a third player going their own way.

Even if the software was easily pirated, you still had to buy a Dreamcast to play those games. If everyone was just pirating games, why didn't the hardware sell better?

I don't fully agree however. Cassettes/ CD / vinyl were just one way of making money off the music. You had concerts and licensing to make more money from the same music. With video games its really just the sale of the game. So it became very hard to convince companies to make new titles for he console.

I still think the dreamcast could have had a solid life span as a budget console. It was already undercutting the playstation 2 and since it was released I believe almost 18 months before the ps2 was released in japan Sega should have been able to reduce the prices further with a micron drop.

Of course who knows. I do miss the sega of late 80s and 90s as they were a strong creative force.


Anyway to the point of the thread , I think UBI would be a great purchase and much better than EA for a company. I could see Amazon or Google buying it to save their streaming fates. I can see Apple buying it but I think they are still going all in on tv/movies

 

[see colon]

As much as I think Ubisoft's game fit more into the Xbox lineup, they've recently moved into other entertainment. Namely, movies and TV shows. There was the Rabbids animated show, and the Assassin's Creed movies and reportedly a live action and an animated show in the works, and this is probably most important, The Division is getting a Netflix show. Ubisoft has many franchises that seem ripe to cross into non-interactive entertainment, and they have the rights to a fair amount of Tom Clancy material also. I don't remember the specifics to the deal but I think any Clancy work that becomes a video game is Ubisoft's. And I believe they outright own all of the franchises they've already made games for, like Rainbow 6 and Ghost Recon.

I think Ubisoft's portfolio is just as valuable, if not more, to a company like Sony (who makes movies/TV and games) or Amazon (who wants to be in games and makes movies/TV), or Netflix (Who makes Movies/TV and is starting to get into games).