Ubisoft Is "Formulating A Linux Game Plan"

Written by Michael Larabel in Linux Gaming on 21 March 2014 at 05:14 PM EDT. 48 Comments
LINUX GAMING
When at the Game Developer's Conference one of the leading questions from Phoronix readers via our forum was to find out about any Linux plans by Ubisoft.

While I wasn't able to obtain an official statement from Ubisoft about their Linux plans, a representative I spoke with made it clear that they are "exploring Linux" and "formulating a Linux game plan" as they continue to monitor the Linux gaming space with Valve's SteamOS work and other game studios porting their engines and titles to Linux.

The Ubisoft representative I spoke with, who asked not to be named, said Ubisoft is getting excited about Linux gaming prospects but that Linux gamers and studios shouldn't get their hopes too high. There's advantages to Linux, but nothing too compelling right now that will immediately lead gamers to installing Linux and causing an significant loss to Windows' dominance. While the Linux market-share is slowly but surely increasing, Ubisoft also views porting to Linux as a means of leading to better code quality and portability -- a sentiment I have also heard from other game studios. Ultimately, Ubisoft will likely begin releasing Linux titles but not necessarily in the near-term.

Of course, Ubisoft "exploring Linux" isn't new either as Ubisoft has been playing around with Linux for years going back to when they were looking at Xen virtualization for gaming.

We will hopefully be hearing more from Ubisoft about Linux in the months ahead.
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Michael Larabel

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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