King's Bounty is, as mentioned above, one of three "major" franchises in this niche genre. Ubisoft have HoMM/MMH, 1C/Katauri have KB and Akella (I think) have Disciples. If 1C/Katauri wants to "beat" Ubisoft, they have to innovate. In return, Ubisoft have to innovate to beat KB. Even if KB isn't directly going after HoMM/MMH's sales, it is still a competing IP.
Ubisoft have been "staggering", as you put it, because they've done it to themselves. They don't put out many titles worth caring about, they alienated their PC userbase (Arguably their biggest) with their absolutely appalling DRM measures, and they seem happy to refresh the same IP again and again. Silent Hunter is on #5, Settlers are on #7, Assassin's Creed is on #3, Prince of Persia has had 5 or so titles since the days of the PS2/Gamecube and so on. They don't put anything out that's really worth buying.
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11-01-2010, 02:09 PM
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