Skull and Bones, Singapore’s first major video game title, launches to mixed reviews after decade-long wait
Justin Farren, Creative Director at Ubisoft Singapore, reveals “Skull & Bones” during the Ubisoft E3 conference at the Orpheum Theater on June 11, 2018 in Los Angeles, California.
Christian Petersen | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Ubisoft Singapore officially launched its first major video game, Skull And Bones, for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on Friday, ending an unusually long development saga that spanned over a decade.
“It’s the first time that this type of game was led by a Singaporean or Southeast Asian studio, so the atmosphere around achieving it has been great,” Jean-Francois Vallee, managing director of Ubisoft Singapore, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Monday.
The Singaporean government has taken steps to bolster its domestic gaming industry. Ubisoft Singapore received a grant from the Economic Development Board in 2016 to aid in the development of an “AAA” game title from the city-state.
The “AAA” game classification refers to titles that are produced and distributed by large, well-known publishers that will typically have high development and marketing budgets.
According to data collected by market research company YouGov in 2020, at least three-quarters of the population in Singapore plays video or mobile games, which jumps to 90% among those aged 18 to 24.
But of those gamers who have played Skull and Bones, reviews so far have been mixed. Metacritic, a website that aggregates reviews of games, lists a critic rating of 64 out of 100 and a “Generally Unfavorable” user rating.
Ubisoft’s Vallee said, however, that he was pleased with the game’s reception so far. He noted millions of people signed up to play an open beta of the game for free, leading up to its official release.
“It’s meeting my expectations, and it’s just the launch. So far, players are engaged with it, they’re giving us feedback, and we already fixed a few bugs,” he said.
The “co-op open world pirate action RPG” sits at a price tag of $60 for the standard version, with more updates and work planned for the game in the future.
But despite a reported $200 million development budget, the process has not been smooth sailing for the young gaming studio founded in 2008.
The game was officially announced in 2017, though reportedly conceived years earlier, following the success of another pirate-themed Ubisoft game, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. But Skull and Bones suffered from a long series of launch delays and a full-on reboot starting in 2018.
According to a report from the gaming website Kotaku in 2021, the game had at least three different creative directors during its development, with current and former Ubisoft developers telling the publication that Skull and Bones never had a clear creative vision and suffered from too many managers vying for power.
In a Ubisoft earnings call earlier this month, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot defended the game’s price tag, saying that Skull and Bones was a “quadruple-A game” and expressed confidence that the game will “deliver in the long run.”
The CEO’s past statements have been met with some criticism online by gamers and netizens disappointed in the final Skull and Bones product after the decade-long wait.
Vallee said on Monday that Skull and Bones would remain a main focus of Ubisoft Singapore for many years to come but that the studio had “a lot of other projects in the pipeline.”
The U.S. has halted a technology trade deal with the U.K., after officials in Washington became frustrated with the pace of progress, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.
Announced in September during President Donald Trump’s state visit to the U.K., the “technology prosperity deal” is a sweeping agreement aimed at encouraging collaboration between the countries on tech like artificial intelligence, nuclear fusion, and quantum computing.
At the time, Trump said that the deal would “ensure our countries lead the next great technological revolution side by side.” U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that the agreement was a “generational step change in our relationship with the U.S.” that would deliver “growth, security and opportunity up and down the country.”
Talks were suspended by the U.S. last week, the FT reported, quoting unnamed British officials.
When asked to comment on the report, a U.K. government spokesperson told CNBC: “Our special relationship with the US remains strong and the UK is firmly committed to ensuring the Tech Prosperity Deal delivers opportunity for hardworking people in both countries.”
The agreement would establish AI-enabled research programs in areas including the development of models and datasets in mutual priorities such as AI for biotechnology, precision medicine for cancer and rare and chronic diseases, and fusion energy, the two countries said in September.
It came as the U.K. signed deals totalling £31 billion ($41 billion) with U.S. tech firms like Microsoft, Nvidia, Google, OpenAI, and CoreWeave to build out the country’s AI infrastructure. The U.S. is the U.K.’s largest trading partner.
The U.S. Department of Commerce has been approached for comment.
The logo of an Apple Store is seen reflected on the glass exterior of a Samsung flagship store in Shanghai, China Monday, Oct. 20, 2025.
Wang Gang | Feature China | Future Publishing | Getty Images
A shortage of memory chips fueled by artificial intelligence players is likely to cause a price rise in smartphones in 2026 and a drop in shipments, Counterpoint Research said in a note on Tuesday.
Smartphone shipments could fall 2.1% in 2026, according to Counterpoint, versus a previous outlook of flat-to-positive growth.
Shipments do not equate to sales but are a measure of demand as they track the number of devices being sent to sales channels like stores.
Meanwhile, the average selling price of smartphones could jump 6.9% year-on-year in 2026, Counterpoint said, in comparison to a previous forecast of a 3.6% rise.
This is being driven by specific chip shortages and bottlenecks in the semiconductor supply chain, which are pushing up component prices.
The continued build-out of data centres globally has hiked demand for systems developed by Nvidia, which in turn uses components designed by SK Hynix and Samsung — the two biggest suppliers of so-called memory chips.
However, a specific component called dynamic random-access memory or DRAM, which is used in AI data centers, is also critical for smartphones. DRAM prices have surged this year as demand outstrips supply.
For low-end smartphones priced below $200, the bill of materials cost has increased 20% to 30% since the beginning of the year, Counterpoint said. The bill of materials is the cost of producing a single smartphone.
The mid and high-end smartphone segment has seen material costs rise 10% to 15%.
“Memory prices could rise another 40% through Q2 2026, resulting in BoM costs increasing anywhere between 8% and over 15% above current elevated levels,” Counterpoint said.
The rising price of components could be passed on to consumers and that will in turn, drive the rise in the average selling price.
“Apple and Samsung are best positioned to weather the next few quarters,” MS Hwang, research director at Counterpoint, said in the note. “But it will be tough for others that don’t have as much wiggle room to manage market share versus profit margins.”
Hwang said this will “play out especially” with Chinese smartphone makers who are in the mid-to-lower end of the market.
Counterpoint said some companies may downgrade components like camera modules, displays and even audio, as well as reusing old components. Smartphone players are likely to try to incentivize consumers to buy their higher-priced devices too.
-
Sports2 years agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports3 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Sports3 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment3 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment1 year agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024