The European video game ratings board PEGI, says that it did not in any way force publisher Ubisoft to cut the content it did from the European version of its new South Park RPG, South Park: Stick of Truth. In fact the ratings body said that it judged the uncut version of the game and gave it an appropriate rating.

One of Andrew Eisen's latest videos (has been busy in the last week or so) points out that Ubisoft's latest move - to delay the Wii version of Watch Dogs to an undetermined date well after the Spring release of the game on other platforms - ensures that that version of the game will have crappy sales.

Some would say that Ubisoft is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy by doing this, giving other publishers an example to point to when they abandon development of their top properties for Wii U.

Ubisoft confirmed during its earning call today that the Wii U version of Watch Dogs has been delayed significantly, coming out well after the game releases on PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and PC.

Those versions of the game will release this spring (the period between April and June), according to Ubisoft, but Watch Dogs for the Wii U will not be released until much later. How much later? Ubisoft was pretty coy about an exact date, saying only that it would be released at "a later date" after the release of other versions of the game.

Ubisoft this week revealed a new graduate program that aims to help a small number of graduate students get into the video games industry every year. The program's continuation is clearly dependent on how the first two years go and its effectiveness in picking and training candidates that will stay in the industry long-term.

Beginning in September of this year, Ubisoft will select two dozen applicants to receive paid graduate positions at its various studios around the world complete with salaries and relocation costs paid.

Some good news for fans of the RPG being developed by Obsidian and South Park Studios: It will be a Steam game and will not use Ubisoft's uPlay DRM. Responding to a question about whether the game would require uPlay to be installed in order to play, Obsidian Entertainment's official twitter account confirmed that the PC version of the game will not use Ubisoft's uPlay; instead it will be fully integrated into Steam.

The rights to publish the game were acquired by Ubisoft in an auction following the bankruptcy of its previous publisher THQ.

Apparently someone has been playing games with the trademark for Ubisoft's Watch Dogs, and while they might think they are being cheeky it is becoming more and more apparent that the person(s) responsible may face serious consequences in the long run. The news came to light in a NeoGAF thread where an eagle-eyed forum user discovered through a U.S. Trademark and Patent Office search that Ubisoft had "abandoned" its trademark with the agency in charge of issuing trademarks.

Ubisoft announced this week that it plans to add around 100 jobs at its Quebec City studio over the course of the next three years as part of a $25 million investment initiative. Around $460,000 of that is from the Quebec government, which the company says will allow it to "strengthen its infrastructure" and "take the lead" on development of AAA next-generation games.

Update: Apparently a system error is being blamed for the disappearance of pre-orders for the Wii U version of Ubisoft's Watch Dogs at GameStop. A spokesperson for the retailer tells Kotaku that the error has been corrected and that pre-orders for the game will be available again soon.

When president Barack Obama purchased a copy of Just Dance 3 in December 2011, he was doing more than just buying a game for his daughters - he was emphasizing the fact the game franchise is universal, according to Ubisoft managing director Xavier Poix. Speaking to IGN about the franchise, Poix reminisced about the best endorsement of a game a company can get - one from a fairly popular sitting U.S. president.

Ubisoft is the first major publisher to launch a major game via Steam's early access program. Is this the beginning of a trend where developers and publishers who make PC games take their games to Steam and let players play early alphas to shape the game before it officially launches? We're not sure but if it is, it looks like Ubisoft will be on the ground floor of the trend embraced by indies.

Five students from universities in Canada were recognized on Tuesday night for research achievements that advance industry innovation, creating new products and services and transforming the lives of Canadians.

Each of the students received an award at the third annual Mitacs Awards Reception, held to honor the contributions of researchers, who have participated in Mitacs programs aimed at fostering research and innovation, as well as forging stronger bonds between academia and businesses across Canada.

Winners include:

A day late and a dollar short would be the best way to describe Episode 76. It was recorded a few days after Extra Life (which admittedly messed with our scheduling and mental stability in the early part of the week). Add to that some technical difficulties with editing the show and you have an episode that is a week late. Nevertheless the topics we talk about on the show are timeless enough that you'll still enjoy it.

Update: Ubisoft says that it plans to phase out its Uplay Passport and will offer one as a free download for Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag (thanks to Polygon).

Rather than be a bunch of hard cases to customers that managed to buy Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag a little bit early, Ubisoft has taken a different attitude. In a series of tweets (gathered by GoNintendo) Tim Browne, the Lead Game Designer on Assassin’s Creed III & IV: Black Flag MP, said that Ubisoft will not punish consumers who were able to buy the latest AC game early by resetting gained levels of in AC IV multiplayer.

Electronic Arts announced today that it will push the Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PC title forward to release it sooner than expected - March 11, 2014. While that's good news for fans of the game that made such a grand showing at E3 this year, analysts are saying that this move by EA is to take advantage of Watch Dogs being delayed by Ubisoft until sometime in the first half of 2014. Research firm Stern Agee is comfortable saying that this news by EA is a response to the delay of Ubisoft's multiplatform title Watch Dogs.

Ubisoft has changed the release window for three titles today. First, the good news: Ubisoft announced that Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag will launch globally on October 29 for Wii U, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, an improvement on its previous target date of Nov. 1 in Europe and Oct. 31 release in Australia. The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions will still get the game at launch on Nov. 15 (Nov. 29 in Europe) and Nov. 22 in Australia. The PC version of the game was originally scheduled to release alongside the current-gen versions, but was pushed back to the next-gen release.

Uplay, Ubisoft's middleware platform that became a full-fledged digital distribution platform a little over a year ago, will be rolled into its PlayStation 4 and Xbox One releases. Ubisoft announced that Uplay will be available on all the titles in Ubisoft's next-generation lineup, including Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, The Crew, The Division, Watch Dogs, and the recently announced games Child of Light, Valiant Hearts, and Trials Fusion.

Some owners of the PlayStation Vita version of Ubisoft's Rayman Legends game claim that the game contains less content than the game on other platforms. According to this NeoGAF thread, the PS Vita version of Rayman Legends is missing 28 levels, despite Ubisoft claiming prior to the game's launch that it offered the same amount of content as the other games.

In a recent interview with IGN, Ubisoft Executive director Alain Corre said that the company is not giving up on Nintendo's Wii U or Sony's PS Vita, and that he believes both platforms still have the potential to succeed with the right execution.

The Wii U version of Ubisoft's next Splinter Cell title apparently WILL have multiplayer but it WON'T have offline multiplayer. Ubisoft producer Liu Jim told Nintendo Life that Splinter Cell: Blacklist for the Wii U won't have four-player local co-op because the company just didn't have enough time to devote to it before it ships. The game will ship on all platforms at the same time - August 20.

Ubisoft's free-to-play online strategy RPG Epic Quest for Mighty Loot is going to dump 'pay to win' microtransactions, according to Joystiq. The game's developers announced today that certain in-game items will be removed from the in-game store because they unbalance the game for players that aren't willing to pay.

Ubisoft has sent out emails and set up a support thread related to a recent security breach related to Ubisoft accounts. The company says that an exploit was used to gain unauthorized access to some of its online systems resulting user names, email addresses and encrypted passwords being exposed. The company claims that it was quick to take action and that credit and debit card information was not compromised because it is not stored on the same servers as personal information.

Prior to Sony announcing its policy on used games during its E3 Expo 2013 press event, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said that his company had not made a decision on how it will handle used game trades in the next-generation. Guillemot said that he had not decided yet if it would use the system Microsoft put in place for Xbox One.

"What I like is because they are not taking a fee, it will give us the option to look at what service we have to give if we have to give service," Guillemot said recently. "So it's a good thing Microsoft is not taking a fee."

No Beyond Good and Evil 2 announcement.

Nothing else matters.

Okay, here's a high level recap.  Host Aisha Tyler completely bombed with the audience.  I'm talking crickets, man.  Chirp, chirp.  Chirp, chirp.

While there was a heavy focus on games, very little gameplay footage was shown, something you'll see me mention over and over if you read the more detailed section of this recap.  But first, here's the too long, didn't read version:

E3!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm excited?  Are you excited?  Oh man, it's like Christmas in June!

I don't know about you but I'm taking a vacation day on Monday, June 10 so I can stay home and watch all the conferences.  Yes, I'm that big a video game dork.

Here's the show schedule for June 10th (all times PST):

Is Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Patriots dead? We're not sure, but GameStop made a dramatic move today that might indicate that something bad has happened to Ubisoft's upcoming game. According to IGN, video game retailer GameStop has removed the game from its database, and is no longer available for pre-order.

As detailed in this May 7 story, indie studio Notion Games indicated that Ubisoft had asked it to change the name of its game Super Ubi Land to something else to avoid the implication that the game was somehow associated with the French publisher. At the time Notion Games said that it would do just that and that it understood where Ubisoft was coming from.

At a recent Ubisoft press event to promote its upcoming game Watch Dogs, senior producer Dominic Guay revealed how the company is working hard to make the hacking in the game as authentic as humanly possible. Joystiq covered the press event extensively in this article.

Indie game developer Notion Games announced via Twitter that it will change the name of its game, Super Ubi Land, following concerns expressed by Ubisoft over potential confusion and possible brand infringement. Super Ubi Land has no connection to Ubisoft, obviously.

The game was announced in January and successfully raised $6,333 from nearly 300 backers in February on Kickstarter.

The game is being developed for Wii U, Windows PC, Mac and Linux for release later this year.

Ubisoft Montreal CEO Yannis Mallat claims that gamers are ready to embrace a world where your game and console are always online - particularly with the upcoming next-gen consoles from Sony and Nintendo.