Ubisoft has signed a licensing agreement with Universal Pictures to develop a game based on the hit NBC television show Heroes.
The game now exists in theory, but details are thin. An Ubisoft spokeswoman on Thursday said the company has no information about what platforms the yet-to-be-developed game might run on or what type of gameplay might be involved.
"With a gripping storyline and rich characters, Heroes lends itself naturally to a videogame format," said Christian Salomon, vice president of worldwide licensing at Ubisoft.
Heroes is a drama series about an interconnected group of people scattered around the world who discover they have mysterious superpowers like telepathy, time travel and flight.
Not content to leave the poor folks alone with their newfound skills, series creator Tim Kring sent some baddies to kill them and put the fate of the world in the heroes' hands.
"We are very excited to be making the 'Heroes' video game with Ubisoft," Kring said in a news release. "Time and again, Ubisoft has proven they can turn licensed properties into fantastic games."
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Ubisoft
Type S.A.
Founded 1986
Headquarters Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis, France
Key people Yves Guillemot, CEO
Yannis Mallat, CEO of Montreal Studio
Michel Ancel, Game Designer,
Industry Interactive entertainment
Products Rainbow Six
Ghost Recon
Splinter Cell
Prince of Persia
Rayman
Myst
Brothers in Arms
Far Cry
Revenue €538 million sales FY2004-05
Operating income €41.4 million
Net income €27.2 million FY 2004-05 (before goodwill amortization)
Employees over 3500, 1760 in production tasks at the 1/20/2005
Website www.ubi.com
www.ubisoftgroup.com
Ubisoft Entertainment (formerly Ubi Soft) is a computer and video game publisher and developer with headquarters in Montreuil, France. The company has facilities in over 20 countries, including development studios in Montreal and Quebec City, Canada; Barcelona, Spain; Shanghai, China; North Carolina, USA; Düsseldorf, Germany; Sofia, Bulgaria; Bucharest, Romania; Casablanca, Morocco and Milan, Italy, amongst other locations. As of 2004, it is the third-largest independent video game publisher in Europe, and the seventh largest in the US. The "Ubi" in Ubisoft is sometimes pronounced [juːbi] or more often [u'bi], in French it is pronounced .
History
The five brothers of the Guillemot family founded Ubisoft as a computer game publisher in 1986 in France. Yves Guillemot soon made deals with Electronic Arts, Sierra On-Line, and Microprose to distribute their games in France. By the end of the decade, Ubisoft began expanding to other markets, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
In the early 1990s, Ubisoft initiated its in-house game development program which led to the 1994 opening of a studio in Montreuil, France, which later became their headquarters. That same year, Michel Ancel created the Rayman character, a character which still stars in new video games as of 2006. Ubisoft became a publicly traded company in 1996 and continued to expand to offices around the globe, opening locations in Shanghai and Montreal. Ubisoft's revenue for 2002-2003 was €453 million; for fiscal year 2003-2004, this grew to €508 million. As of 2004, Ubisoft employs more than 2,350 people, of which over 1700 are classed as working in production. Yves Guillemot, a founding brother, is the chairman and CEO.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Ubisoft committed itself to online games by getting behind Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, The Matrix Online, and the European and Chinese operation of EverQuest. The publisher established ubi.com as its online division. But in February 2004, Ubisoft cancelled the online portion of Uru and backed out of the publishing deal on The Matrix Online. Regardless, only a week later the company announced its acquisition of Wolfpack Studios, developers of fantasy MMORPG Shadowbane, and in July 2004, its Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow was released for the Xbox and PlayStation 2 with what some considered a revolutionary online multiplayer feature.[citation needed]
On December 20, 2004 Electronic Arts (EA) purchased a 19.9% stake in the firm. At the time, Ubisoft released a statement saying they considered the purchase "hostile" until they had further information on EA's intent.[1]
On March 2005 Ubisoft acquired MC2-Microïds (Microïds Canada) and integrated it into Ubisoft's Montréal studios.[2]
Ubisoft also bought the Driver franchise from Atari in July 2006, for a sum of €19 million (USD$24 million) in cash for the franchise, technology rights, and most assets. Additionally, though Ubisoft is not acquiring the studio outright, the 80 members of Driver developer Reflections Interactive will become employees of Ubisoft.
On April 11, 2007, Ubisoft announced that it had acquired Sunflowers
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