Ubisoft has announced that Ubidays, the two-day press conference and game show launched by the publisher in 2007, will not be taking place this year.
Ubisoft launched Ubidays in 2007 to showcase its lineup of new releases, driven by the downsizing and lack of interest in E3. Roughly 900 journalists attended the inaugural event, held in Paris in May 2007. “E3 is now only for the US, so we wanted to do something to help everybody see our products,” Ubisoft President Yves Guillemot said at the time. “So we decided to do E3 but in France and call it Ubidays.”
But with the resurgence of E3 planned for 2009 and the establishment of GamesCom as the dominant European show, the company has decided to shift its effort back to the grander stage of industry-wide events. “With regards to Ubidays, with the E3 event in the US, the GamesCom in Europe and Tokyo Games Show in Japan, we think that we’ll have great outlets to present our creativity and innovation to a worldwide audience and will therefore reconsider our plans,” a Ubisoft spokesman said. “There won’t be a Ubidays this year.”
Whether Ubidays returns for 2010 will presumably depend upon the outcome of the major shows in 2009, particularly E3. The Electronic Entertainment Expo is scheduled to take place from June 2-4 this year in Los Angeles, while GamesCom runs August 17-19 in Cologne and the Tokyo Game Show is on from September 24-27, in, surprise, Tokyo.
Source: GamesIndustry
