Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot answered several questions during the company’s General Meeting 2025 held earlier this month (a recording is available here, though you’ll have to register first to access it).
The executive addressed hot topics related to Ubisoft, such as the commercial failure of Star Wars Outlaws, which he blamed largely on the IP’s current woes:
For Star Wars Outlaws, we didn’t reach our sales targets. The game suffered from a number of items. First, it suffered from the fact that it was released at a time when the brand – the brand that it belonged to – was in ‘choppy waters’. And the game had a few items that still needed to be polished, and they were polished and debugged in the early weeks after release, but it did affect sales volumes. We did heavily improve the game after those early weeks, and when it will be released on upcoming consoles such as the Nintendo Switch 2, it will have a new version of the game.
Guillemot refers to the fact that some Star Wars products that were released immediately before Star Wars Outlaws did not perform well. Chiefly, he might be referring to The Acolyte, which aired between June and July 2024 and was already canceled in August due to low viewership.
It’s hard to imagine The Acolyte having such a big impact on Star Wars Outlaws sales, though. After all, other live action TV series like The Mandalorian, Andor, and Ahsoka had much better reception among fans. Much more accurate is the other half of Guillemot’s statement, where the Ubisoft CEO admits that the game launched with several problems that were only ironed out over the course of the following months. Perhaps the game, in its current, improved state, will find a new audience on the Nintendo Switch 2, where it is scheduled to launch on September 4.
In the General Meeting 2025, the Ubisoft CEO also commented on the Stop Killing Games initiative:
Regarding the petition, we operate in a market and whenever we release a game, we provide a lot of support for that game. We also provide a lot of services to make sure that the game is accessible and remains playable 24/7. So, we provide information regarding the game and how long the game can be played. Players and buyers are forewarned that the game may be discontinued.
[…] This kind of issue is not specific to Ubisoft. All video game publishers are faced with that issue. You provide a service, but nothing is written in stone and at some point, the service may be discontinued. Nothing is eternal. We are doing our best to make sure that things go well for all players, because obviously, support for old games cannot last forever. But that’s an issue that we’re working on, and it’s something that the industry at large is working on to minimize impact on players. But clearly, it’s something that you need to factor in. The lifespan of a piece of software, whenever there is a service component, eventually the services may be discontinued because the software may become obsolete over time.
What do you think about the comments made by the Ubisoft CEO? Let us know in the comments below.
