Ubisoft Announces 2.9% Decline in Net Bookings

French gaming behemoth, Ubisoft, just spilled the beans on a bit of a hiccup — a 2.9% dip in their net bookings for the quarter ending June 30th. Honestly, didn’t see that coming. They pulled in €281.6 million (about $330.8 million if you’re converting). But, hey, no biggie, right? They’ve pointed fingers at Rainbow Six: Siege not quite hitting the mark and some mysterious partnership getting a rain check till next quarter. Classic case of “it’ll happen later, just not now.”

Their back catalogue, however, is on a roll — €260.4 million ($305.9 million), up 4.4% from last year. Pretty neat, huh? I kept thinking, what makes old games suddenly cool again?

Oh, and get this, Ubisoft is shaking things up with something they’re calling Creative Houses. Sounds fancy, but I think it’s just new names for their divisions. The first one’s this Tencent-powered sidekick they hinted at earlier. CEO Yves Guillemot chimed in, talking about some new operating model — apparently built around business units. Seriously, does anyone know what that means? Anyway, they’re going for this whole “quality, focus, autonomy” spiel.

Apparently, this new subsidiary is running the show for big guns like Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and, you guessed it, Rainbow Six. So, no pressure or anything. Yves seems pumped about it, though — all about being more agile (which always makes me think of yoga for some reason) and focused. It’s like they’ve got this master plan for creativity and stability — kind of like trying to have cake and eat it too.

Anyway, where was I? Right, new leadership and all. Must be quite the juggling act, but they seem optimistic. Here’s hoping it all pans out.