Ubisoft's PC sales continue to grow

Ubisoft released its 2017-18 full year sales and earnings report today, and it looks to be good news all around: "Very solid performance for the fourth quarter and continued excellent execution across the board," as the document says. Far Cry 5 was Ubisoft's second-biggest release ever, Assassin's Creed: Origins delivered a record fourth-quarter performance, Rainbow Six Siege viewership continues to climb, and sales for the year—€1.732 billion ($2.043 billion)—exceeded expectations. 

Of particular note around these parts is Ubisoft's continued, and growing, success on PC. The PlayStation 4 still dominates Ubisoft's sales by platform, but PC accounted for 21 percent of total sales for the fourth quarter—just two points behind the Xbox One, and three percentage points higher than the third quarter. For the full fiscal year, 18 percent of Ubisoft's sales by platform went to PC. 

"In the short and medium term, Ubisoft has many growth opportunities to tap and expects further profitability increases," Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said in a statement. "Our digital transformation is progressing at a faster pace than we anticipated. Our potential in the PC and mobile market is massive, notably in China. Finally, we are continuing to develop and structure our esports offering, which represents a significant opportunity."

That "esports offering" would be Rainbow Six Siege, which has been a real sleep success for Ubisoft. The game is multiplatform but the Pro League is PC-only: An Xbox One division existed for the league's first year, but was cut at the start of Year 2 in favor of a focus on PC. And it appears to be paying off. There are now more than 30 million registered players, and Ubisoft said that viewership for the Six Invitational finals in February 2018 were up 300 percent over the 2017 event.