Gamertell

At today’s Ubisoft press conference (July 12, 2007), the company showed off several casual DS titles alongside the more hardcore offerings of Assassin’s Creed and Haze, including new Petz offerings, new brands Imagine and MyCoach, and guitar simulator Jam Sessions.

The conference began with a discussion of the popular pet-simulator Petz line on the DS, which includes Horses, Dogz, Hamsterz and Catz, and announced Tigerz and Dolphinz. The line apparently makes up 10% of the company’s business, a figure they would like to see expanded to 20%.

Also announced for the DS is a new line of games aimed at 6-14 year old girls – the Imagine brand - with titles such as Master Chef, Fashion Designer, Figure Skater and Animal Doctor. Also aimed at the casual (and female) markets are a series of MyCoach games which include My Life Coach, My Word Coach, and foreign language Coaches in Spanish and French.

Rounding out the display of DS titles was a demonstration of the new music title Jam Sessions. Gameplay encompasses entering chords into an editor then strumming away, described as “a guitar in your pocket’.

Ubisoft is wise to jump on the lucrative casual game boat that Nintendo is enjoying right now, though none of these announcements are terribly exciting to hardcore gamers (the good stuff came a bit later on in the conference). However, the Jam Sessions premise (Guitar Hero that you can take with you!) certainly has some potential.

Read [Ubisoft] Read [Nintendic]