Ubisoft announced today that the company was launching two green initiatives. Starting with the upcoming Shaun White Skateboarding, Ubisoft games will no longer feature paper manuals packed in with the discs. These games will now feature digital manuals accessible within the games’ menus. "That is going to provide a huge benefit to the environment, but also to the consumer; having a better gaming experience with an in-game manual," said Rich Kubiszewski, Ubisoft’s VP of Operations, "We are forecasting this could be 6 million manuals we could eliminate, with PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3, for the rest of the fiscal year. That’s about 180 tons of paper, 360 tons of wood, and about 2,300 acres of small forest." It will be up to individual developers making the games how rich the digital manuals will be, with possible uses of interactive illustrations and video.

Second, the company’s PC games will ship in a case that is made from 100% recycled polypropylene plastic, as will all future PC titles. "It is the first DVD case in the industry that is 100% recycled," Kubiszewski said. "The cases we previously used were recyclable, but they weren’t made from recycled matter." Ubisoft’s partner Technimark is creating the cases. "They are taking all of the DVD cases that were going to the landfill, as well as detergent bottles or whatever it may be, something like 40 million tons of recyclable material," Kubiszewski said. The first such PC title, Splinter Cell Conviction, ships April 27; other upcoming titles and new printings of older titles will also feature the recycled case.

Read the full article at Fast Company…

Montréal, QUÉBEC – 4 mars, 2010 – Ubisoft annonce  le développement de  Shaun White Skateboarding, en collaboration directe avec Shaun White, double médaillé d’or olympique.  Développé par Ubisoft Montréal, Shaun White Skateboarding est attendu pour Noël 2010.

Premier jeu de skateboard de la franchise Shaun White, Shaun White Skateboarding  proposera aux joueurs une expérience innovante qui renouvellera le genre.

« J’ai vraiment hâte que ce jeu voie le jour», a déclaré Shaun White. « Cela fait un bon moment que nous travaillons sur ce projet et le jeu va tout déchirer ».

Premier athlète à avoir gagné une médaille d’or en skate et en snowboard aux X Games d’été et d’hiver, Shaun White apporte une vision unique au développement des jeux vidéo portant son nom.

« Nous avons pu voir aux Jeux Olympiques que Shaun est un athlète hors pair dans les sports de glisse, » a déclaré Olivier Ernst, Directeur Général Ubisoft Canada.

« L’enthousiasme de Shaun pour le skate se retrouve dans ce jeu vraiment unique en son genre. »

De plus amples informations sur Shaun White Skateboarding sont disponibles sur le site Internet : www.shaunwhitegame.com

A propos d’Ubisoft®:

Ubisoft figure parmi les leaders en production, édition et distribution de jeux interactifs dans le monde. Le groupe a connu une croissance considérable grâce à un catalogue de produits fort et diversifié ainsi que des partenariats fructueux. Les équipes d’Ubisoft sont réparties dans 28 pays et distribuent des jeux dans plus de 55 pays à travers le monde. Le groupe s’engage à fournir au public des jeux vidéo innovants et d’excellente qualité. Pour l’exercice 2008-09, le CA d’Ubisoft s’est élevé à 1,058 milliards d’euros. Pour plus d’informations, rendez-vous sur: www.ubisoftgroup.com.

© 2008 Ubisoft Entertainment. All Rights Reserved. Ubisoft and the Ubisoft logo are trademarks of Ubisoft Entertainment in the U.S. and/or other countries. Shaun White is used under license from Shaun White and Shaun White Enterprises, Inc.

Tomorrow (Thursday) at 4PM EST, I’ll have Scott Mitchell – Animation Director of Shaun White Snowboarding – here to answer all your animation-related questions… live.

Join his chat if you any technical questions for Scott, or check back here tomorrow night for more details!

The strength of its Wii titles was key to Ubisoft’s 14 percent sales increase in its fiscal 2008, the publisher announced today, although sales declined 5.1 percent in the fourth quarter.

Thanks to what the company calls "a continued strong showing" for Rayman Raving Rabbids: TV Party and Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip, Ubisoft’s fourth quarter sales were €206 ($292.52) million, while full year results came to €1.06 ($1.5) billion.

"You can expect more Shaun White in the future," said Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot on the company’s financial results call today.

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. reached internal targets of one million units sold in, while during the fourth quarter, casual DS franchises Petz and Imagine each sold in over one million units.

Guillemot says that Prince of Persia, at 2.5 million units, outdid its predecessors despite being released on fewer platforms. Sales in the Far Cry and Rabbids franchises were also up 50 percent over their previous installments, and the company’s casual business rose 40 percent during the year.

Ubisoft says it has continued hiring over the past year, adding some 1,300 employees "with a view of driving the company’s expansion." The company says it’s now the fourth independent publisher in the U.S. by marketshare with 5.2 percent — which is actually a lowering in its position over last year, when it pegged itself as the third publisher with 7.2 percent share.

White, who’s a mainstream brand thanks to his exploits in both skateboarding and snowboarding in the X-Games, has spent the past two years working with Ubisoft’s acclaimed Montreal development studio on his new snowboarding game.

…

John Taylor, videogame analyst, Arcadia Research, said "Shaun White Snowboarding" sold 259,000 copies in the U.S. in November and generated $13.6 million for Ubisoft with 40 percent of those sales for the Wii console.

With the success of the first game, White said he’s already started working on the sequel.

"Now that I have the knowledge and I can speak to programmers better and I understand a lot more about what’s possible and what’s not possible, this will all help with the next game," said White.

Source

Today Ubisoft announces that Shaun White Snowboarding for the Xbox 360(R) video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, the PLAYSTATION(R)3 computer entertainment system, the Wii(TM) home video game system from Nintendo, the Nintendo DS(TM) system and PSP(R) (PlayStation(R) Portable) system, and the PlayStation(R)2 computer entertainment system is available in stores now.

“I’m really excited about the release of Shaun White Snowboarding,” said action sports superstar and Olympic gold medalist Shaun White. “Ubisoft Montreal and I have worked together for over two years to create something I would be proud to put my name on. I feel like we’ve captured the true essence of the action sports lifestyle and brought it to players around the world. I’m hoping that those who have never been to the snow will want to try snowboarding after they play, and those who do ride will be proud of what we’ve done.”

Source