11:00, Apr 13th by Neil Long
European publishing powerhouse Ubisoft may be gaining strength in Europe, but in the Far East it is quite a different story – and president and CEO Yves Guillemot has laid the blame squarely at the feet of Japanese retail.
Guillemot told MCV this week that he believes it is the manner in which European and US titles are sold that is the main barrier for Western games in Japan.

“Japan is always a problem; it’s difficult for us to penetrate that market,” Guillemot explained to MCV.

“Because the titles coming from Europe and the United States are tagged as ‘foreign games’ they are not seen as ‘normal’ games. There is a special section for games coming from export markets and that is not helping us at all.

“Just the fact of saying they are export products could be changed and it would make our chance to succeed in the Japanese market much better. There is a lot that can be done to help all the other Western publishers to sell more in Japan.”

And all this has even led to Ubisoft withdrawing its efforts somewhat on cracking the market.

“We are not so much concentrating on the Japanese market,” added Guillemot.
“We try to create games that can sell in Europe and America not only because it’s easier, but in addition, we will have specific product that we will sell only in the United States or only in Europe.”

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