Report: Tencent and the Guillemot Family Considering Moving Ubisoft Assets to New Venture - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 15 January 2025 / 4,434 Views
Tencent and Ubisoft's founding Guillemot family are considering forming a new venture that would include some Ubisoft assets, according to people familiar with the situation who spoke with Bloomberg.
The goal of this new venture would be to boost Ubisoft's value. The Guillemot family and Tencent own 25.4 percent of Ubisoft's share capital and 29.6 percent of the voting rights as of March 31.
The people who spoke to Bloomberg claim the two are looking at which assets to include in a new entity. A deal would allow Tencent to own a stake in the new venture and gain more control over Ubisoft's IP, boosting its video game business outside of China.
Discussions are still ongoing and no final decision has been made, according to the people who spoke to Bloomberg.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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All these business meetings but I wonder if anyone there suggested making good video games?
...Who would, no matter how unserious it would be, create the funkiest, funnest, and most extreme reactions to a purchase of Ubisoft if this doesn't work. Microsoft, Sony, Tencent, Valve, Epic, Nintendo?
....Yes, the last one isn't happening, but it would be hilarious. Very very hilarious. The flames and screams would entertain.
But yikes, Ubisoft is collapsing fast. Anyone there for THQ to compare?
Pepsico. They will use Ubisoft to bring a new age of Pepsiman to current gen.
But really, other than Tencent, I don't see any of these interested. Nintendo would probably be too reticent to make such a big purchases (smaller studios sure, but not the whole deal). Valve are too comfortable as they are, so that's not happening. Sony would probably want to to compete with MS, but I imagine the price might be too much for what they would gain. Microsoft already had a massive legal battle for buying ActiBlizz, no way they are making such a big purchase again so soon.
Tencent is the one most likely to get it. They have the money and the interest to get into the western market, so that would be an easy win for them.
If it does go on sale I hope Nintendo is able to scoop up the team behind Mario+Rabbids. It's a series I enjoy.
This sounds like an attempt to rebrand, just with different steps.
If you take the bad crowds with you, rebranding and moving assets over to a new area isn't going to fix the root issues.
I would just accept the death knell and get it over with. Let the assets roam free and see what others can do with them.
The way I'm reading it and I could be reading it wrong because I'm a bit confused but I think Yves will essentially create a shell company and move Ubisoft's biggest IPs under ownership of that company which Yves and Tencent will be the only owners of, then those IPs will be "licensed" back to Ubisoft.
Tencent apparently is interested in acquiring Ubisoft but they likely don't want all the extra stuff and are only interested in Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Tom Clancy, their biggest IPs. Tencent also wants full control it seems. Yves doesn't want to give up control of Ubisoft but needs investment, their delay of Assassin's Creed is a tactical one for negotiations as well.
This maneuverer keeps Tencent off Ubisoft but Tencent still gains co-ownership (Tencent and Guillemot Brothers) of Ubisoft's biggest IPs; funding and profiting from them, without taking over the entire company. Yves remains in control of Ubisoft but also receives his cash injection using the biggest IPs as a bait to get Tencent to invest into this new shell company.
If they go onto creating a shell company, it would have to be private wouldn't it?.
I say this, because Ubisoft going PLC was a bad idea over the long-term for them, so I'm wondering if they would go private with that company, let Tencent have some control, but not enough that could get the rest of Ubi booted out of that shell company (basically to avoid a repeat of what could happen right now if they didn't).
Yeah, tbf your idea of a shell company does make logical sense, if it was Yves that comes up with the concept, because technically that does fall in line with him wanting to evade loss of control and capital, but to do that he would need to not only go private with that shell, but also prevent Tencent from having more members on board.
I do think he wants a sort of "soft reboot" of Ubisoft, just with a different name, while carrying core assets to give ppl the illusion that Ubisoft is becoming that Phoenix rising from the ashes.
Like you I also want Yves to go away, because his general mismanagement and all the scandals/issues that have plagued the company under his rule have been made very clear to us that he hasn't learned to course correct, nor does he want to admit to wanting to change for the better, and thus I believe he should absolutely go.
Just sell to Ms
So they can still require laying off half the company? MS can't even survive the ActiBlizz purchase lol not to mention MS cannot acquire Ubi without Ubi first selling off the Cloud streaming arm they acquired from Activision in order for MS to have even got ActiBlizz since it would be a cloud monopoly.
Add to that, MS once again today just announced further mass layoff rounds.
Considering how poorly Ubisoft is doing, some staff cuts to make the company leaner and more reactive and proactive wouldn't be a bad thing... It also gives them room to financially maneuver.
If they carry on their current path, they will just collapse and EVERYONE loses their job and that doesn't help us (The consumer) or the gaming industry in the slightest.
A buyout from another publisher would be a good outcome at this point to stop Ubisoft from becoming insolvent... And honestly, I don't care what company that is, provided they can turn the ship around.
Except as long as the Guillermot family is attached (in any form) to the company, it is impossible to turn the ship around. They will never see the light and the error of their ways and all IPs held by the company will continue to be horrific versions of what they could be (AC). Ubisoft 100% does NOT need to exist, only their IPs do, which once the company collapses can simply go the THQ rout and sell off all IPs to much much more competent devs who can do the IPs justice infinitely better than Ubisoft ever could.
Nobody needs Ubisoft, nobody needs their employees and honestly their IPs aren't anything special either so do we really need AC, Farcry, Splinter Cell (basically already dead IP) Prince of Persia? No, no we don't.
Best outcome is top devs leave and form their own studio and make the games out of pure love of making them and playing them and leave corpo greed at the door. Let's take Ubi out back and shoot it dead as deserved, its over for them, they had their run.
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