VR Gaming's Biggest AAA Supporter Is 'Disappointed' With Game Sales

gamerant.com:

Ubisoft is «disappointed» with the sales of Assassin's Creed Nexus VR. That's according to the company's top executive, who also revealed that Ubisoft won't be doubling down on its virtual reality bet for the time being, given the current state of VR gaming.

Assassin's Creed Nexus VR was released in mid-November as an exclusive for the Meta Quest headset lineup. While the series already dabbled in virtual reality with the 2018 Assassin's Creed: The Temple of Anubis, its latest attempt at doing so was the first VR entry in the franchise that was delivered as a full-length AAA experience. Nexus VR was met with largely positive reviews, which have immediately established it as one of the best AAA games for the last three iterations of Meta Quest headsets.

Despite the flattering buzz from critics, Assassin's Creed Nexus VR has seemingly failed to generate significant commercial momentum, as recently suggested by Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot. Speaking at a February 8 Q&A session held following the company's financial report for the third quarter of its fiscal year 2024, Guillemot said Ubisoft was «a bit disappointed» with the game's sales. Elaborating on that statement, the executive said that Nexus VR «did OK,» but not as well as the company was hoping it would.

Guillemot's comments were offered in response to a question about the current state of the company's virtual reality ambitions. To that end, the executive also revealed that Ubisoft's VR investments won't be increasing anytime soon. The industry first «needs to take off» for that to happen, he explained.

We have been a bit disappointed by what we were able to achieve on VR with Assassin’s Creed. It did OK, and it continues to sell, but we thought it would sell more, so we're not increasing our investment on VR at the moment because it needs to take off.

This perspective might prove to be disheartening for VR enthusiasts, not least because Ubisoft has long been the biggest proponent of virtual reality among AAA