"We're the last of the dinosaurs. We're still the monster triple-A game with very large teams [and] multiple studios helping out on different bits. There are fewer and fewer of these games being made, especially as the middle has fallen out.

We really felt like this was a rare opportunity We had an experienced team, who had worked on the franchise for a while; we had the full backing of Ubisoft to make something huge; we had almost three years to do it, which is a rarity these days; the tech and the hardware platforms were both mature, which allowed us to start running instead of building base features; and the installed user base for all platforms is massive." - Assassin's Creed 3 creative director Alex Hutchinson

I guess Ubisoft feels that their game is just bigger and better than all the other AAA titles coming out before the year ends. I bet a lot of other game companies would like to argue this point.