Inside Ubisoft...

[_skitzo_]

Located in beautiful Saint-Laurent in Montreal, Quebec, houses one of the most gifted studios the industry has seen.
As I entered the studio, I wandered to the double door that leads into one of hottest studios today.
I met up with Katia she reminded me of the history behind the name Ubisoft, and how proud they are to be Canadian.

1986 DEBUT
Ubisoft Entertainment S.A, an educational software and video game publishing and distribution company, is created by the five Guillemot brothers.

Growing success with a series of hits on PC, Amstrad™, Atari™ and Amiga™ and first distribution partnerships with the leading U.S. and European video game publishers : Elite™, Electronic Arts, Sierra, LucasArts™, Novalogic®.

1991 INTERNATIONAL EXPANSION
Creation of distribution subsidiaries in key world markets: United Kingdom, Germany and the U.S.

1992/96 FIRST STUDIOS
Creation of the first in-house production studios in France and Romania.

Launch of Rayman®, an action/adventure game based on the exploits of the now famous < armless and legless > character.

Inauguration of distribution subsidiaries in Japan, Italy, and Australia.


1996 GOING PUBLIC
Ubisoft Entertainment S.A. is listed on the Second Market of the Paris Stock Exchange.

Partnerships with big players in the entertainment industry such as Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment and Disney.

1997/99 INTERNAL GROWTH
Creation of new production studios in China, Canada, Spain, Italy, Morocco, later, in Montpellier and Annecy.

2000/01 EXTERNAL GROWTH
Transfer of Ubisoft Entertainment S.A's. shares to the First Market of the Paris Stock Exchange.

Acquisition of two distribution companies and several studios, including:

- Redstorm Entertainment (USA), famous for developing Tom Clancy's games
- Blue Byte Software (Germany), well known for leading titles The Settlers and the Battle Isles Series
- Game Studio, the game division of The Learning Company (United States) and the 80 titles for which it has exclusive publishing rights, including Prince of Persia®, Chessmaster® and Myst®.

Launch of an online game portal, ubi.com.


2002/04 SUCCESSFUL BRANDS
Domination of the charts and numerous awards, in particular for Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell®, Prince of Persia® The Sands of Time, Far Cry™, Beyond Good and Evil™, XIII, and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six® 3.

Creation of distribution subsidiaries in South Korea, Finland, Canada and Switzerland, and acquisition of the Tiwak studio in France.

Introduction of a new logo, and announcement of the one hundred millionth game unit sold.


2004/05 CONQUERING HOLLYWOOD
Licensing deals signed with major Hollywood companies, including:
- Universal Studios for the production of a game based on three-time Academy Award® winning director Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong,
- Sony Pictures Consumer Products, to develop videogames based on Sony Pictures Animation's first CGI motion pictures
- LucasArts, to develop Star Wars®: Episode III Revenge of the Sith for handheld consoles.

Creation of the Ubisoft Campus in Canada.

As I continued my tour deeper into the heart of Ubisoft I sadly was unable to take pictures in some areas, witch was very understandable. I toured around the Assassins Creed team that was absolutely breath taking, from the amount of people involved, to the posters up of the game, do the dedication on everyone's face working on the title.
I did ask couple of questions in regards of the title, but all and all to sum it up; this is the biggest title if not THE GAME for 2007 from Ubisoft.

From there we walked up flight of stairs and talked about Nintendo Wii, how Rayman Raving Rabbids was a great seller for Wii, and Ubisoft had six titles for launch, talk about huge support for launch!
We then made our way to the Rainbow Six Las Vegas floor.
We were told that roughly 3 years went into R6LV; the detail in the game is down to a tee. It's a copy of Las Vegas, except Casino names, and well inside the casino floors as well.
The question came up, with all this Xbox 360 and Wii support, what's up with PS3?
Don't fear PS3 fans Ubisoft is had at work working on couple of titles for
PS3 not to mention Assassins Creed!

By this time, we had a look at the in-house debug team, as well as feed back they gather from them, to enhance the game play, and fun!

As you can see over at Ubisoft everyone plays a huge role to complete near perfection.

We took a glance over at the Open Season floor, as well as the King Kong team, we went into the Ubisoft sound studio! Yes the place where Sam Fisher and many others find there way into the game!
I was in shock, but was told this was a recent addition. Before hand they would record in Vancouver B.C But due to high cost, they moved the sound studio to Montreal.

Every wall, every corner you gander at you can see how much pride Ubisoft has for every title they make in Montreal from the wall of fame (which I will post pictures of) to models and drawings you see in glass casings, Ubisoft are extremely proud of what they do, and proud to be Canadian.

I would like to personally like to thank Katia for welcoming myself and Dark Widow with open arms to Ubisoft to show us perfection in the making!

[oldengineer]

Wow! Great exclusive Skit, good to see u had fun, thanks for the 1st hand article, much appreciated

[Dark_Widow_]

Awesome write up skitzo. I must admite, visiting ubisoft really did change my out look on the whole programing aspect. But must admite I felt a little out of place until the topic of rayman for wii came up.

[Dark_Widow_]

Oh...and please note...I didn't get breakfest first LMAO!