Ubisoft buys TrackMania maker Nadeo

By Robert Purchese Published 6 October, 2009

Brilliant puzzle-driving series acquired.

Ubisoft has bought Parisian developer Nadeo, known best for the car-jumping and route-planning TrackMania series of games.

Nadeo has only 10 employees, but TrackMania has around 700,000 unique users each month online, if Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot is to be believed.

In total, the car-jumping series has registered over 10 million players - and they've made a combined 15m tracks to upload and share.

First out of this acquisition will be TrackMania 2, presumably, which was announced in September and aims for release next year. Like most previous instalments, TrackMania 2 will be PC-bound, although Ubisoft may have other ideas.

To plot a course through TrackMania's distinguished past, start with TrackMania Sunrise (PC, 2005), then hop to TrackMania United (PC, 2007), TrackMania Nations Forever (PC, 2008) and finally TrackMania DS (DS, 2008).

Ubisoft hasn't disclosed the sum spent on Nadeo.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (8) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • wizlon #1 2 years ago

    I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing. One good thing that may come from this are console versions of TrackMania. I'd buy that for a dollar.

  • Tomo #2 2 years ago

    Hmm. The console versions would be welcome, but hopefully they leave Nadeo to do there thing without too much interference.

    I've got bad vibes about this though.

  • crozon #3 2 years ago

    to be fair this would work really well with PC gamers and console gamers. First make the game cross platform and allow maps created by the PC community work with the console versions. That would mean even more players.

  • RobotRocker #4 2 years ago

    First sight of those fucking Rabbids in Trackmania I swear its pitchforks and flaming torches.

    TM2 would be nice on 360 though, ta.

  • smurphs #5 2 years ago

    Yay, trackmania 2 on XBL please to complement the awesomeness that is Trials HD.

  • Synthesis #6 2 years ago

    TM would certainly be a perfect candidate for cross-platform multiplayer gaming and if they can pull that off without ruining key elements of gameplay then they will have a winner.

  • SniperZoz #7 2 years ago

    Trackmania on XBLA/PSN .... I HOPE!

  • The_Inquisitor #8 2 years ago

    Reminds me of the darks days, when it was EA buying up all the indie studios to feed their growing [Evil] empire.

    It all ended up OK in the end though so I'm sure this can only be good news.... or can it?