Ubisoft dumps printed instruction manuals @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on April 20, 2010

News: They're going green with the Flying Tomato's next game, Shaun White Skateboarding.

With Earth Day scheduled for this Thursday, April 22, Ubisoft has announced they will be going green with their upcoming PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 releases.

The biggest green effort from the publisher will be the discontinuation of printed instruction manuals for all PS3 and Xbox 360 games. Starting with this Fall's Shaun White Skateboarding, all PS3 and Xbox 360 games will instead include "digital game manuals."

"It's pretty cool that Ubisoft is making a conscious effort to go green with its new video game packaging," commented Olympic Gold Medalist Shaun White. "I'm excited for my new skateboarding game to come out and stoked that it will be the very first Ubisoft game to be part of their green packaging initiatives."

This won't be a major shock to the system for most gamers, as I can't think of a single game released this generation that didn't include some kind of in-game instructions and/or a tutorial.

Ubisoft has also cut printed game manuals from their PC titles, which the company begun last month. PC gamers will also be treated to new eco-friendly packaging in their Ubisoft games, starting with Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction. When it releases later this month, the game will come packaged in a 100 percent-recycled polypropylene "ecoTech" DVD case.

It seems unlikely that the cost savings for these new packaging methods and lack of printed material will be passed on to the consumer, but you never know. We'll have more soon.