Ubisoft: Black Flag won't outsell Assassin's Creed 3

Upcoming Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag won't outsell Assassin's Creed 3, according to Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot.

The company confirmed that 12.5million copies of Assassin's Creed 3 had been shipped since launch, marking a new company record.

However despite Guillemot believing the pirate theme will generate lots of interest this year, he is expecting slightly less sales.

"To come back to Assassin's Creed 4, in our numbers we have... we expect less than last year," he told a conference [via GameSpot].

"We are actually pushing to achieve more than last year because we think the pirate segment is a great segment that can generate a lot more on a worldwide basis than what was achieved last year.

"But we wanted to be prudent on our expectations so that it can probably be a bonus if it comes."

Elsewhere the publisher also revealed that Far Cry 3 had shipped 6million units, much higher than anticipated.

Ubisoft's sales income for the year ending in April reached £1.05billion GBP.