Ubisoft Entertainment SA

PAR:UBI

Earnings Call Transcript 2019-Q3

[Operator]

Good day, and welcome to the Ubisoft Q3 FY '19 Sales Conference Call. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Yves Guillemot, CEO; and Frédérick Duguet, CFO. Please, go ahead.

[Yves Guillemot, Co]

Good afternoon, and good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining our conference call. We performed solidly in a challenging quarter that was marked, as expected, by a very competitive environment. Our performance was propelled by our games' and services' high quality, by robust players' engagement, by strong back-catalog and PRI gross as well as by our continued momentum on PC, on mobile and in Asia. Frédérick will provide more details on that performance later on. The past 12 months have given rise to new questions, from the approval process in China, to the competition from the battle royale genre and to the rise of free-to-play on consoles. This will require publishers to demonstrate agility and focus on both innovation and quality. Notwithstanding, we believe the industry's short- and long-term opportunities are outstanding and will be a strong support to our top line growth and profitability.Let me go through those opportunities. First, digital deeply transformed the industry and offers an increasing edge to content creators. Why? Because we now have a direct relation with engaged communities who have a profound impact on our games and on their success. This interesting edge is apparent in the growing number of distribution platforms fighting for great content and communities. Second, the PC and console market for premium games is thriving. Five years after the beginning of the cycle, the PS4 and Xbox One installed base grew strongly last year by 21% and the Switch by 115%. 2018 also saw record-setting launches for many premium titles with Far Cry 5, God of War, Monster Hunter, Spider-Man and Red Dead Redemption 2, all this in the context of massive success of free-to-play battle royale games. These are the characteristics of a thriving market that is bringing in new customers. Third, eSport is immensely popular but is still significantly behind traditional sports in term of overall revenue. Fourth, gamers in Asia are opening more and more to western brands and to the premium model in a material way. This development must not be underestimated. Finally, from streaming and cloud gaming to artificial intelligence, major technological breakthroughs will deeply transform video games and the industry. We believe these drivers will benefit Ubisoft as a whole over the coming years. We also believe that to develop a sustainable organization that offers long-term visibility and value to shareholders, the following has to be built: first, an internal culture that fosters long-term thinking and innovation, a culture that looks at empowering talent so they can deliver great achievements and constantly improve their working environment and processes. This is a culture we strive to develop and which explains our ability to build, in large part, organically one of the most if not the most and diversified portfolios of the industry. Second, an organization based on IP ownership. And we own all our biggest IPs. This provides us with full flexibility to leverage their growing strategic values through licensing deals with major partners on new platforms and new geographies. Third, a model based on internal studio collaboration to face the immense challenges of today's games production and post-launch operation. This is key to delivering high-quality games and services and being able to do so on a regular basis. For more than 10 years, Ubisoft has made massive investment in its talents and technology and has implemented a collaborative multi-studio organization. As a consequence, we are today recognized for our capacity to deliver high-quality games and services on a regular basis. Fourth, we believe that video games can help deliver meaningful benefits to the world, whether it's players exploring different choices in our open-world games, learning about history in Assassin's Creed, achieving fitness with Just Dance or participating in teamworks and tactical planning with our Clancy titles. We aim to go beyond pure entertainment. That is why Ubisoft is ideally positioned to take the advantage of the industry's secular transformation in a sustainable way.Before handing the call to Frédérick, I would like to mention our recent announcements regarding the change of PC distribution channel for The Division 2. As I said, there is a growing number of distribution platforms fighting for great content. With this deal, we seize an opportunity to increase players' exposure to our own store, while, at the same time, supporting our partners that greatly values our games and provides materially better terms. Early indications are supportive, as PC preorders are higher than for the first Division, and preorders on the Ubisoft store are 6x higher. We believe this deal is a long-term positive for the Ubisoft.I now hand over the call over to Frédérick. Frédérick?

[Frédérick Duguet, Chief Financial Officer]

Thank you, Yves, and hello, everybody. You see net bookings ended up at EUR 606 million, down 16% year-on-year and slightly up versus our target of approximately EUR 600 million. Net sales stood at EUR 562 million, EUR 18 million lower than expected due to clarification on IFRS 15 revenue recognition rules.In a very competitive quarter, we delivered a robust performance with strong engagement levels. We benefited from a combination of high-quality games and services, continued strength of our back-catalog and PRI revenues and momentum in Asia. We saw market growth on PC and mobile as we leveraged the growing strategic and global value for our brands. This is having a more significant and increasingly positive impact on our overall performance.Looking at our launches. While [ Starlink ] underperformed, Assassin's Creed Odyssey performed better than anticipated and demonstrated amazing resilience in a time frame that saw releases from 5 of the competition's biggest franchises. According to available market data and internal estimates, it was the 10th biggest seller in value in calendar 2018 on Xbox One, PS4 and PC in the western markets. Interestingly, 6 out of the 10 bestsellers benefited from more time on the market than Odyssey this year. By the way, one of them was Far Cry 5, which ranked #4, and is materially growing versus Far Cry 4, the prior best-seller in the franchise. Over the past 12 months, with 2 titles in the top 10, including 1 in the top 5, we showcased, again, our capacity to release major titles every year.Coming back to Odyssey. The title saw a material increase in play time versus Origins, reconfirming the successful transformation of the franchise into a major RPG brand. We have seen a significant progression of its digital performance, including digital distribution, conversion rate and PRI.At the PRI level, because Odyssey has a longer content delivery plan than Origins, a bigger chunk of the season's past revenues has been deferred to future quarters versus what we had done last year. It is too early to fully evaluate Assassin's Creed Odyssey's long-term potential, but with current solid players' engagement and a comprehensive post-launch plan, we believe the game has what it takes to deliver a longer tail than Origins.The Crew 2 nicely benefited from the release of the Demolition Derby free update and the long-awaited PvP mode. December has been the second biggest month of activity for the game since its launch, with a 44% increase of the player base during the quarter, combined with substantial progress in play time. Since launch and on a comparable basis, The Crew 2 saw a material increase in PRI versus The Crew 1. Let's move on to Rainbow Six Siege. The game's first 9-months' revenue is nicely up year-on-year. Engagement was solid last quarter, despite the challenging environment for future games, with MAUs comfortably up versus last year. Rainbow Six activity has indeed been constantly growing since November and has been strong in January. Siege has been pulling off this remarkable feat as, over the past 3 years, it has imposed itself as the leader of tactical shooters with its unique mix of 5-versus-5, close-quarter combat game play, 44 unique characters and procedural destruction. Its fans, who are passionate gamers, like to play new games when they are released and then keep coming back to Rainbow Six.During the quarter, we continued building Siege eSports team with a focus on growing viewership to lead to sustainable long-term revenues. Last November, the Rainbow Six Pro League Season Finals became the largest Rainbow Six event ever organized worldwide. With the new events created in 2018, we saw a 205% increase in viewership over the calendar year. We now have 3 massive viewership peaks during a year. We plan to continue our global eSport offensive in 2019, starting this week with the Six Invitational, which brings together fans, developers and content creators to watch professional players compete for the title of World Champion.Ghost Recon Wildlands continues to engage a strong community of players with to its second year of post-launch operation. During the past 9 months, every Special Operation update was dedicated to building the Clancyverse, which creates epic crossovers. Sam Fisher from Splinter Cell, Caveira from Rainbow Six, Scott Mitchell and Kozak from Ghost Recon Future Soldier, all these iconic characters were introduced in new PvE missions and exciting PvP content.With our last Year 2 Special Operation update around the corner, Ghost Recon Wild engine is one of Ubisoft's greatest achievements during the past 2 years.Finally, For Honor: Marching Fire update introduced 2 new game modes and new fighters. We generated solid engagement and increased play time. We continued to acquire new players with successful free-to-play events and social events. We have acquired 6 million new players on PC, Xbox One and PS4 over the past 6 months, and we engage them through major pro sports like the recent Halloween and Assassin's Creed crossover events. As a consequence, the game's PRI was up strongly during the quarter versus last year. Before moving to mobile, I would like to mention Brawlhalla, the free-to-play game from Blue Mammoth that we acquired last year and that is available on console and PC, including the recent releases on Xbox One and the Switch. Their game continues to outperform our expectations and has accumulated 22 million downloads since launch.Moving on to mobile. Net bookings were sharply up 105% during the quarter. This was driven by the impact of our licensing business in Asia, highlighting the growing strength of our brands in this region. It was also supported by the 1492 acquisition by a nice boost on South Park: Phone Destroyer and by the successful launch of Assassin's Creed Rebellion.At the group's level, net booking for the first 9 months of the year reached EUR 1,352,000,000, up 13%. This growth was spurred by the continued strong momentum for our back-catalog and PRI revenues. Back-catalog net bookings was up 39% to EUR 843 million, representing 62% of our total net bookings, up 11 points versus last year. With MAUs up 17% over 9 months, digital revenues reached EUR 898 million, up 34%, and PRI reached EUR 444 million, up 39%.Digital distribution continued to grow nicely as well and represented 54% of total distribution versus 41% last year. With such a strong overall performance, digital as a percentage of total net booking is up 10 points to 66%, and PRI is up 6 points to 33%.PC grew 58% and represented 22% of total net bookings, up 6 points versus last year. This reflects our momentum on the platform, notably in Asia. A strong performance from our premium PC business is providing interesting insights, as PC has been a strong free-to-play market for a long time. This demonstrates there is not one dominant business model on PC, but many thriving models, and we expect the same to happen on consoles.Let's now turn towards Q4. For Q4, we are targeting net sales of approximately EUR 571 million and record net bookings of around EUR 698 million, up 29% year-on-year. This performance will be driven by the upcoming releases of Far Cry New Dawn and The Division 2. Far Cry New Dawn's release is tomorrow. Its unique, fun and colorful, post-apocalyptic open world will revisit Hope County, Montana 17 years after the events of Far Cry 5. Players loved Far Cry 5, the best-selling iteration in franchise history, and New Dawn will build on that momentum.The Division 2 will launch on March 15. On a compelling 40-hours campaign, the revamped Dark Zone and PvP features, through a game-changing end game and a year of free content, the Division 2 has built on the learnings from the first game. The goal is to appeal well beyond launch to a wide range of players, whether they are looking for a strong end game or for the exploration of a transformed Washington, D.C. Top-tier journalists and content creators played an early preview of The Division 2, leading to positive articles and videos, establishing The Division 2 as the benchmark for RPG and looter/shooter players.Last week, players got the chance to experience a significant amount of content in the closed beta, including main and side missions, open world activities and intense PvP encounters and an exclusive end game mission. The beta reached a record numbers of players for a Ubisoft closed beta, and engagement was high, with an average of 5 hours played per player, and a high completion rate. Millions of players from around the world will have the chance to take Washington, D.C. back during the open beta that will be run for March 1 to March 4.Moving to the full year. We are confirming our net bookings target of around EUR 2,050,000,000. Back-catalog is now expected at north of 50% of total net bookings versus around 50% previously, following the increase in some of our games' physical units expectations. We are keeping digital and PRI at respectively around 65% and 30% of total net bookings and the number of units for our 3 AAAs at around 19 million units. We are also confirming our non-IFRS operating income of around EUR 440 million and free cash flows of around EUR 300 million.Due to clarification on IFRS 15 recognition rules, we are now expecting net sales of around EUR 1,900,000,000 versus around EUR 2 billion previously.On the number of diluted shares, we are expecting 120 million shares versus 119 million shares previously. This is mostly the effect of rounding figures. Finally, as a reminder, in the first half, our account showed a noncash financial income of EUR 76 million related to the total return swap contract linked to Vivendi's exit. As our share price was valued at EUR 93.4 end of September, we had announced during our H1 earnings communication that we were buying back on October 31 the 3 million shares related to that swap contract. As our share price had decreased to EUR 72.6 on November 9, the day we received the shares, the noncash net financial income at the end of this fiscal year will be reduced from EUR 76 million to EUR 13 million.I now hand over the call back to Yves.

[Yves Guillemot, Co]

Thank you, Frédérick. So we are operating in a competitive and thriving market that offers meaningful, long-term opportunities. In this context, Ubisoft delivered another strong performance in Q3. We have continued to do so in the early weeks of Q4, notably last weekend, during which we reached our fourth best activity level ever and the best ever on PC. Over the years, Ubisoft has demonstrated a proven capacity to adapt to and to leverage new market trends with meaningful innovations, and we will continue to do so in the exciting times ahead.The future looks great for the industry and for Ubisoft, and we are confident we can continue to grow our top line and profitability over the coming years. To achieve this, we continue to build a sustainable organization that provides more visibility and benefits to all our stakeholders.We are now ready to take your questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] We will now take our first question from Tim O'Shea from Jefferies.

[Timothy Larkin O'Shea, Equity Analyst]

I'd love to hear any feedback on The Division, what you saw on the private beta. I think one of the challenges from the prior version was that users didn't stay engaged, at least at the onset, and you've obviously made some significant positive changes to that game since launch. So I'm just wondering with The Division 2, what did you see in terms of user engagement? And does it encourage you as you approach the launch?

[Yves Guillemot, Co]

Thank you for your question. In fact, we had a record number of people coming to the beta, which shows really a huge interest, and we also have them play 5 hours. So that was very encouraging because it showed that they could test many of the best elements of the game. So it's very encouraging. And we have been working all now to make sure we will open our open beta in a few weeks with a really fantastic experience.

[Operator]

We will now take our next question from Charles Scotti from Kepler Cheuvreux.

[Charles-Louis Scotti]

A follow-up question from my side. On Rainbow Six Siege, you just crossed the 45 million registered players mark. What about monthly active user and daily active user, is the trend still [ upward ]? And also can you give us an idea of the breakdown between PRI and the revenue generated from the sales of units on the game itself? And any chance that you can turn Rainbow Six Siege into a free-to-play title? My second question, on the freeze on the Chinese games approval. You were you expecting to release Rainbow Six Siege in China by March 2019, is it still a fair assumption? Or -- and what's new on the Chinese front on the Rainbow Six Siege? And what is your view on the rise of the free-to-play battle royale games? Do you intend to launch also your own free-to-play battle royale game or to include a battle royale mode in The Division 2, for example?

[Frédérick Duguet, Chief Financial Officer]

So in your first question, actually, on Rainbow Six Siege, we are not there yet at 45 million players, but we are getting close to it. In terms of proportion of PRI to -- related to the Rainbow Six revenues, yes, the majority of our revenues are coming from PRI. To the question as whether Rainbow Six might be coming to free-to-play, we are happy with the evolution of the games today. We see that there is strong engagement, and we continue acquiring new people. So, so far, the game is continuing to grow and we see potential growth for opportunities in PC and Asia with the drive of eSport. Now on the Chinese approval, well, we are happy to see that the approval process is starting again, but we don't know yet when the game is going to be released.

[Yves Guillemot, Co]

On the free-to-play part and the battle royale games, we can't give any comments at the moment. But for sure, we are looking at all the new innovations that are happening on the market, and our teams are working hard to make sure we can continue to be very creative on this market.

[Charles-Louis Scotti]

Okay. And just one follow-up question. You mentioned 17% increase in monthly active users. Is it on the 9 months basis? And can you give us an idea of -- in absolute terms? And also, does it include mobile?

[Yves Guillemot, Co]

So it's on 9 months, indeed. It excludes mobile. And I cannot say more on the absolute numbers.

[Operator]

We will now take our next question from Nicolas Langlet from Exane.

[Nicolas Langlet, Research Analyst]

I've got 3 questions. The first one on the Steam commission reduction. Are you able today to quantify the potential benefit for you on a full year basis? And how much of that benefit do you expect to book in full year '18, '19? Second question, for The Division 2, are you able to share some color on the level of preorder of The Division 2 compared to The Division 1? You made some comment, but I think was poignant to see. So if we can have some clue on the comp side as well, it would be nice. And finally, looking at Far Cry New Dawn, how should we look at this game from a financial point of view? Do you think it's a title that could sell as much as Far Cry Primal?

[Frédérick Duguet, Chief Financial Officer]

So in terms of the impact of the Steam's commission, we should not expect them to be meaningful in fiscal '19. I can't give you any qualification of the number and impact on a full year basis. On the -- but of course, we are happy to see the evolution of the terms and that's -- that bodes well for a financial impact in the future. In terms of preorders of The Division 2, we didn't comment on this on the multi-format side because we can't compare it with what we had on Division 1, knowing that, at the time, we had required the players to preorder to get into the closed beta, which we didn't do this year. So it's definitely not comparable.

[Yves Guillemot, Co]

But on the PC, we saw that the growth we have in Asia has a big impact. Regarding New Dawn, the game is not a full-priced game. It's a $40 game. So it's not exactly the same than Far Cry Primal even if it's close in the reviews it's getting. So we have really good expectation on that game.

[Operator]

We will now take our next question from Evan Wingren from KeyBanc Capital Markets.

[Evan Todd Wingren, Research Analyst]

Just on The Division, continuing the trend. Would you remind us if your forecast that you've given includes unit sales to be up or down versus the first edition of the game and how you think about the release of this version of the game, given just not only the competition from other frontline releases in the quarter but the big uptick in interest in battle royale games going on right now in the market? And then secondarily, the PRI growth did slow a bit in the third quarter. Just wondering if you could provide some context as to kind of what were the drivers there?

[Frédérick Duguet, Chief Financial Officer]

So The Division 2, we didn't disclose any color on the comparison in units versus Division 1. But what we can say, that it has all it takes to be a bigger seller on the life time than the Division 1. So in terms of PRI in the third quarter, what -- we've been happy with the growth of PRI over the first 9 months. 39% is a great performance. On the third quarter, we have the combination of 3 elements. I mentioned the first one, which is that we said that the post-launch program for AC Odyssey will be not only bigger but also it will be delivered on a longer period of time than AC Origins. So as a consequence, we deferred more of the season past revenues into next quarter and into fiscal '20 related to last year. The second element, and I also referred to it, is that the [ future ] segment was very crowded this quarter, and it had an impact on our PRI growth. And the third element is that last year, we had launched the PvP of Ghost Recon Wildlands. And when you compare apples-to-apples after 9 months of launch Far Cry 5 versus Ghost Recon WildLands, Far Cry 5 has less of a life title than Ghost Recon WildLands. So that has an impact in terms of apples-to-apples comparison. Having said that, we've been very happy with the growth in terms of mobile and in terms of [ foreign ].

[Operator]

We will now take our next question from Robert Berg from Berenberg.

[Robert Berg, Analyst]

Three questions from me. First, on the Epic store agreement. Aside from the lower take rate, can you just maybe give us some color on how you came to the decision to back this particular store, what the advantages are, if any others and how you may manage any risks from not being on the Steam platform? Second question, you've occasionally been criticized for having more developers than peers, but it appears now that some of your competitors are having to add developers in order to add -- or to deliver the level of content they feel is necessary. Are you largely comfortable with your staffing levels in order to deliver the level of content necessary for your own titles? And the third question, just a quick clarification on the new IFRS sales estimate. Am I correct in thinking all your underlying assumptions has stayed broadly the same but that your accountants are now telling you that you have to defer another EUR 100 million to next year?

[Yves Guillemot, Co]

So I will answer the first 2 questions and Frédérick will answer the third one. Yes, Epic -- the Epic deal is something that -- a deal that was important for us because it's really helped to actually do more of our business on our own store and to have a better revenue per unit sold via the Epic deal. So altogether, it really helped us to go smoothly from Steam on The Division to Steam -- between those 2 players that are our store and Epic. On the second subject, yes, it's -- we are comfortable with the number of people we have today. We will continue to grow our team's sizes just because there are more and more opportunities now for new developments on the actual platforms but also on a certain number of new opportunities. So we are very happy we are at the level we are today, and we will continue to grow quite well in the next few years. On the third question...

[Frédérick Duguet, Chief Financial Officer]

And yes, your statement is correct in the way you look at IFRS 15. So no impact whatsoever on the net booking side. And we now defer the revenues related to the minimum guarantees relative to the licensing agreement and distribution deals into next year.

[Robert Berg, Analyst]

Okay. One quick follow up. I suppose then, on the Steam customer base, if you were to have an estimate on how many would move their purchase to Epic versus Uplay, have you had any indication on that so far? Obviously, different economics on both.

[Yves Guillemot, Co]

That's difficult to say at this stage. What we can say is that adding the Epic deal is really -- a part of the Epic deal sales are going to happen at the end of this year, but a big part will also happen next year.

[Frédérick Duguet, Chief Financial Officer]

I think it's too early to say. The only first indication we have is, right, preorders for the overall PC platform for us is good increase on the preorders on our own store.

[Operator]

We will now take our next question from Emmanuel Matot from ODDO.

[Emmanuel Matot, Analyst]

First, what do you expect for fiscal year '20 regarding the competitive environment? Do you think it will remain as intense as it is currently? Second, by launching Far Cry New Dawn in February, a very promising new version of The Division in March, knowing also that Odyssey is performing well and you launched also Far Cry 5 at the very end of fiscal year '18, don't you think you are going to face a huge basis of comparison next year? And my last question is about, maybe, financial communication. You are close now at the end of your 3-years road map with the target to reach EUR 440 million of adjusted EBIT in fiscal '19. Are you working on a new road map you will share with us in the coming months?

[Yves Guillemot, Co]

Thank you. So I will answer the first question, competition next year. We expect the year to be less competitive as this year. As you saw, we had 5 huge brands coming at the same time between October, November and December. And that was probably never seen in the industry before. So we expect less competition like we -- more like we had in the previous years. On the comparison, Frédérick?

[Frédérick Duguet, Chief Financial Officer]

So yes, in -- when we look at fiscal '19, we've -- we are enjoying a strong growth. So we should see some of that growth translating into catalog growth next year. We -- as we work hard in increasing and improving the player engagement on AC Odyssey and on The Division 2, we think that should bring a positive tailwind to our catalog growth next year.

[Yves Guillemot, Co]

And the Q4 has been quite big in the last few years. And it will continue to be so because it's -- normally, it's a good quarter in our industry.

[Frédérick Duguet, Chief Financial Officer]

In terms of the 3-year plan, yes, we are happy to be on track with our road map. At this point in time, we -- there is no intention on our side to redevelop a new 3-year plan.

[Operator]

We will now take our next question from Nick Dempsey from Barclays.

[Nicholas Michael Edward Dempsey, Research Analyst]

I've got 2 questions left, one of them kind of following up from the tough comps next year question. But as Far Cry New Dawn is included in your back-catalog in FY '19, and now there presumably won't be another thing that's similar in back-catalog in FY '20, does that make it that much harder for back-catalog to show good growth in FY '20? In other words, your total growth in FY '20 will be more reliant on new launches? And second question, I believe that Twitch viewership wasn't great on The Division 2 over the period of the closed beta. Was that just because everyone was watching, out of curiosity, people playing Apex Legends? Or is that something we should worry about?

[Frédérick Duguet, Chief Financial Officer]

On the first question, I think I might repeat myself. I think we have been enjoying a strong growth this year. So naturally, we should see some of this translating into the next year. Our catalog is, of course, driven by progress on the PRI, so if we continue doing well on that front, that should bring a good tailwind next year, and knowing that The Division 2 is set to be a very strong game with a strong impact next year.

[Yves Guillemot, Co]

And we can't say much about what will -- what will we launch next year, but we expect to have a good back-catalog. On the competition for the quarter, as you mentioned, we were actually happy with the Twitch views of the closed beta. It's -- we have to remember, it's a closed beta. It's not an open beta. At one point, it was #2 on Twitch. So it's a good performance. And yes, for sure, we look at what the competition is doing, but we think we have a good quality -- a very good-quality game, and that the open beta will show how big it can be.

[Operator]

We will now take our next question from Mike Hickey from The Benchmark Company.

[Michael Joseph Hickey, Research Analyst]

First, I guess, just curious your comfort level in regards to consensus -- Street consensus, looking for 10% sales growth, 12% EBITDA growth in your fiscal '20 period. And then I realize you're not going to announce your fiscal '20 slate, but can you remind us the number of games and the fair expectations for fiscal '20? And you commented on catalog and PRI having tailwinds in fiscal '20, but should we expect a similar level of AAA selling from your frontline releases in '20 that you're guiding for in '19?

[Frédérick Duguet, Chief Financial Officer]

Yes, I cannot comment on the consensus. What I can tell you is that we said that our usual template is to come with 3 to 4 AAA games per year, and that's still a valid template for next year.

[Yves Guillemot, Co]

At the same time, we are going to come with 3 to 4 AAA games, but we can't comment more.

[Michael Joseph Hickey, Research Analyst]

And then could you provide some color on Assassin's Creed selling life-to-date, please?

[Frédérick Duguet, Chief Financial Officer]

Yes, on Assassin's Creed, what we said is that it exceeded our expectations in a very competitive launch period. The great elements that we've seen and observed over time is the strong improvement on player engagement and on all metrics. So we are really talking about activity, number of days played per player, significant increase in play time, higher increase in completion rate. And what we've seen is that it translated also in breakthrough conversion rates, not only of the season past but also on all elements of what we can do in games. So it's really boding well and confirmed that the RPG elements that we added in Origins and then that we strongly improved in Odyssey are really paying off.

[Yves Guillemot, Co]

And at the same time, as we will continue to deliver content, we expect the game to continue to sell for a long time.

[Michael Joseph Hickey, Research Analyst]

Okay. The last one from me. You reiterated your view for 19 million units sold in from your 3 games. It sounds like Assassin's Creed exceeded your expectations. Does that mean that -- it sounds like maybe The Crew didn't meet up but obviously, on a relative basis, that's a much smaller gain compared to the other 2. I guess, have you made any changes to your view of sales from The Division 2?

[Frédérick Duguet, Chief Financial Officer]

No, we haven't.

[Operator]

We will now take our next question from Julia Matoshchuk from Morgan Stanley.

[Julia Matoshchuk, Equity Analyst]

I think that -- the first one is actually about, again, 2020 financial year. Should we expect an official guidance at any point of time?

[Yves Guillemot, Co]

Yes, you will get that next quarter when -- in May, when we will announce our next quarter numbers.

[Frédérick Duguet, Chief Financial Officer]

That's usually the time when we do it.

[Julia Matoshchuk, Equity Analyst]

And the second question is, strategically, how you think about your business these days because it does seem that competition is getting even more intense, and it does feel like Fortnite actually has an impact on the premium dollar pool? So does it -- essentially, does it make sense to continue developing 3, 4 people, 8 releases per year? And releases I'd feel, on average, sell between 6 million and 7 million units? Or does it make sense to reallocate the development time and come up with a big franchise which sells 15 million units plus?

[Yves Guillemot, Co]

So what we can say is that our games are doing more than 6 million, 7 million units. Some games can do less, but we have games doing more. And our goal is to go -- as we said in the previous calls, to go -- to take them at the 15 million, 20 million level in the medium term. What we -- about the industry, now we are, as we said, excited by what's happening, first, because the console business is growing thanks to lots of new models of payment. We had a fifth year for console that was a big year because 21% growth for Xbox and PS4. The fifth year is big and 115% for a new console is also big. So on the console side, the turnover on that business, plus the growth of the number of consoles, the installed base, is really good. And on top, what we see is that the Asian market is growing and the mobile business is growing. So it's a good business to be in at the moment.

[Operator]

We will now take our next question from Mike Ng from Goldman Sachs.

[Michael Ng, Research Analyst]

I have one on the holiday and one on Rainbow Six. First, could you just comment on the competitiveness of the holiday season? To your earlier comment, a few other video game publishers called out high competition which may have led to weaker-than-expected pricing. Did you see something similar? And then second, on Rainbow Six. It was promising to hear that Rainbow Six made a strong start in January, but you also made a comment about how some Rainbow Six players like to play new games but will eventually come back. Could you just expand on that statement a little bit? Was that something you're beginning to see because of new titles like Apex Legends and maybe the Anthem open beta? Any color there would be helpful.

[Yves Guillemot, Co]

Yes, what we wanted to say is that what we have seen with Rainbow Six players is that when there's something new coming in the market, especially shooter games, they go and explore and then they come back. And what we've seen is that it happens all the time. And it's still growing on the market, so it's -- that game has been growing in the last 3 years, even if there were lots of releases coming. On the holiday season, yes, at the end of the year, having 5 AAA titles in the last 3 months did put pressure on prices at some point. But I would say it was more between Fallout, Battlefield and other games that the competition was the biggest in terms of pricing.

[Operator]

We will now take our next question from Evan Wingren from KeyBanc Capital Markets.

[Evan Todd Wingren, Research Analyst]

I just had one quick follow up, and it's on PRI in the fourth quarter. I think that you had mentioned that you were standing by the target for 30% PRI as a percentage of net bookings. That basically means that you expect slower growth in the fourth quarter. I think that Far Cry and New Dawn, its digital bookings are going to be within that metric, too, in the fourth quarter. And given the comment about Rainbow Six doing better in January, I'm just trying to square all of those metrics as to why growth might be slowing a bit more in the fourth quarter. So maybe just a bit of color there would be very helpful.

[Frédérick Duguet, Chief Financial Officer]

Yes, sure. Yes, we've been very happy with the fact that we've been trending ahead of our full year target on PRI at 33% so far. But as it looks -- when we get into Q4, because the weight of the quarter will be heavier, skewed towards new release. Because new release usually comes with a lower percentage of PRI, that's why we maintain the guidance at 30% at this stage. Now in terms of evolution versus last year, we had in the base of last year a strong event on Rainbow Six with Outbreak, and that's the reason why we anticipate a slowdown in terms of PRI evolution in Q4. Yes, the digital part of Far Cry New Dawn will be part of the PRI in Q4.

[Operator]

At this time, there appears to be no further questions. I would like to turn the conference back to you for any additional or closing remarks.

[Yves Guillemot, Co]

Yes, thank you. So thank you for the call today, and have a good evening or good morning.

[Operator]

This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.