6.    Ubisoft

Market Share: 5% (UNCH)
2006 Position: 7 (+1)
Revenues: $905 million (+24%)
Profits: $54 million (+240%)
Expectations: 18% revenue growth for the next fiscal year
12 Month Range: $34-$72 <UBSFF.PK>
Employee Count: about 3500
Age: 21 years
SKUs in Top 100: 4 (+1)
Franchises above 80%: 3 (-3)

Out of all the third parties on this list, it’s perhaps Ubisoft that has embraced the hardware transition with the most warmth. The company’s acceptance of change has been good for it, too – you just have to look at that profit growth and strong expectations to see that.

For another year, Ubisoft has defined itself by smart decisions and good timing. The last year saw the company re-envision all of its Tom Clancy brands into benchmark next generation products, every single one of which paid Ubisoft back in both sales and critical acclaim. But likely more important was the company’s ebullient support for Nintendo’s Wii. Ubisoft put out no less than seven titles in the Wii’s launch window, and earned its keep on the console with Red Steel and Rayman: Raving Rabbids – the two best selling third party Wii titles, period.

Of course a lot of those Wii products weren’t particularly good games, but the strategy is indicative that Ubisoft is reading the right tea leaves and knows where the industry is heading. And Ubisoft does have some genuinely good-looking games due out in the next year – Haze, the latest from virtuosic FPS studio Free Radical immediately springs to mind, as does Ubisoft Montreal’s Assassin’s Creed. There’s no reason to believe Ubisoft won’t continue to hit all the right notes in the future.

Pictured:
Rayman Raving Rabbids
Assassin’s Creed
Haze
Tom Clancy’s EndWar