Lords of the Dance - Ubisoft is Kinect Third Party Leader, Just Dance Coming To Kinect?

Ubisoft's Earnings Presentation really hammered home the success of the dancing genre. With dance game sales of over €300 million, casual games have played a major part in Ubisoft's continued success, and Kinect is a prime opportunity for expansion with Ubisoft having already made claim to being the third party leader of the platform.

It almost seemed inevitable that, having sold over 14 millions units, Ubisoft's biggest dancing game, Just Dance for the Nintendo Wii, would eventually find its way to Kinect. Ubisoft themselves have already added to the genres continued expansion on Kinect after the big success of Harmonix's Dance Central, by porting Michael Jackson: The Experience. And now we have what appears to be the first sign that their biggest dancing hit is about to lose the controller.

Their strategy for the 2012 fiscal year, as their earnings presentation indicates, is to "capitalize on 5 years of successful experience". Right now Kinect, Move and Nintendo 3DS are prime targets and Ubisoft want to consolidate dance revenues by creating "new iterations of successful franchises" and "releasing them also on Kinect and Move". This almost certainly means that more Just Dance is coming, and it's coming to every major home console.

Whilst Ubisoft's casual strategy may only be of benefit to one slice of the Kinect market, hopefully their success will lead to more creative games for the platform. They still continue to invest in core franchises such as Assassins Creed, Splinter Cell and Prince of Persia and earlier this year Ubisoft even proposed Kinect versions for all of their brands. We should have a more clear view of their strategy for the near future at E3 next month.