Ubisoft: What's a Rayman? Fans: It's that series you pushed into the corner in favor of Rabbids. Ubisoft: OH, SO YOU WANT A NEW RABBIDS GAME THEN? YOU'VE GOT IT!
I'm honestly astonished by the frequency in which you put out high quality, well researched, and entertaining content. You are absolutely doing what you were meant to, my friend. Keep it up!
@@Enclavefakesoldier those two games back when they came out... for me they were kinda revolutionary as kid with how different and fun they were. Edit:were and still are
I might also add, that Ubi Soft's recent strategy might be due to a takeover attempt by Vivendi, owned by infamous (in France) media mogul Vincent Bolloré. Bolloré bought enough shares of Ubi Soft to have a seat in the administration of Ubi Soft, never hid his attempt to become the major shareholder of the company, and had a notoriously bad relationship with the Guillemot brothers, who were the current main holders. This might explain the fact that Ubi Soft was so averse to taking risks, and relied on his franchises for the last few years, and still do so despite Bolloré having sold his shares and given up on the takeover. Why change something that works?
So basically, Ubisoft used to be like that guy who got tons of sex when he was younger, but now that he's middle aged is trying to make some safe investments.
I guess Ubisoft goes by the "throw enough shit at the wall and some of it will stick," business strategy. Which makes sense when you consider how they are very, very hit or miss. Then even within their hits, there are some glaring problems that make you think "how did they fuck that up? It's such an obvious problem...".
Ahhh Donald Duck: Going Quackers. I remember getting that being the first game I ever got along with my GameCube. Glad to see someone else remembers it!
That survival horror "Cold Fear" was actually quite good. It could have reached Resident Evil level of popularity were it not for the budget and management issues forcing the devs to cut around the corners and cancel an entire segment of the game along with a couple of weapons and really creepy enemy types.
Matt McMuslces: The Scholared Documentarian (Moral of the story, Ubisoft, make more Hooters games and King Kong ports!) 8:58, hold on, is that Holly Madison, former Playmate and Hefner Girlfriend... WAIT IT IS!)
I recently binge played all of the prince of persia by ubisoft. I might get some hate for it but the 2008 Prince of Persia was by far my favorite. If only it had better reception, I would have loved a second or third game in that vein.
You do good work. Everyone else in this scene spends all their time discussing the product; you get into the creative process, and industrial/corporate dynamics. It's good shit.
This was an extremely well made video about a publisher who used to take risk, but also found some core franchises to milk cows on. I will agree that they should take some risk every so often, like they did for Steep. Granted we don’t heard much from that any more, but my guess is that they are a company that is going to look for ideas to start franchises from so they can make great profits.
Ubisoft, alongside Ghostlight, also published Shin Megami Tensei III in Europe (as Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer's Call featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series).
Holy shit, Buck Bumble! When my friends would come over I would always ask if they wanted to play Smash and when they weren't looking I would put Buck Bumble in and everytime that music started it was a mass of groans.
You should have said more about Deathrow. I rented that game in high school thinking it was a game about Death Row, but upon popping it in, was confronted with a fictional futuristic frisbee game where you could win by either scoring points or beating the other team into submission. Surreal.
After the sexual harassment scandal, the fact that Ubisoft published Hooters Road Trip, Charlie's Angels, and Lost: Via Domus isn't that surprising anymore.
I was a alpha/beta tester at ubisoft for the farcry and splinter cell games, we played on an emulated didn exist yet wii with the biggest controller ive ever seen in my life.
The intro to your video - I was thinking about signing up for Uplay+ to try out the new Ghost Recon Breakpoint, but then I saw the games that were advertised and realized that company specializes in this one type of game. It's either straight up Far Cry, or third person action games that all somehow function similarly. They might be good games, but getting access to all of the Assassins Creed, Watch_Dogs, Far Cry, and Ghost Recon Wildlands/Breakpoint are all kind of the same experience. Thank you for pointing that out.
It's crazy to think The World Ends With You could've been in this segment. It wasn't a flop persay, but an IP that was left dead and forgotten for 14 years, only having life thanks to the fans making fan art and other content showing there's still an audience for it
Loved this! The computer they made their name on in the late 80s (if anyone cares!) was the Amstrad CPC - the 3rd biggest selling 8-bit micro in Europe. Always the also-ran in its home (UK) market, but sold massive numbers in France and Spain, and Germany under the "Schneider" brand. Some brilliant memories in there!
I feel like you didn’t play that obscure “cell shaded shooter game” based off of an obscure comic, called XIII otherwise you probably would’ve had some good stuff to say about it. XIII had a great engaging story, fun action rich gameplay and featured big voice actors like Adam west. People still play the PC version online today. It’s definitely one of my favorite games.
I am absolutely floored. How did they look at Donald Duck of all characters and make the mental leap of, " This Donald Duck game is awesome...Ohhhh, you know what?? We should totally do something with Prince of Persia!! People will love it!!" It's really amazing where these game ideas come from.
Man, probably Ubisoft and Blizzard really got a chunk of my childhood and teen years. It's really makes me sad that years ago Ubisoft got a bad reputation and now Blizzard. I really wish they go back to it's roots like what they used to do. I remember playing Evil Twin on my Dreamcast when my PC's gpu got fried because I'm playing too much Diablo 2.
4:45 "His name would be continually slapped onto games long after his death" They do that shit with the books too. The top 1/3 of the cover will be TOM CLANCY and on the bottom, it'll have a tiny little "written by not Tom Clancy"
I remember "Dinosaur" a lot more than I should, specifically because I was 5 years old when it came out. If you know any 5 year old who doesn't think dinosaurs are fucking rad, I'll give you $5(...but also there's something wrong with that kid, and they should probably be put on a watchlist somewhere...)
Any love for "Steep" out here? They gave it away with PS Plus in Jan. 2019 but I just started playing it last week. I'm hooked on this game. It reminds me of 1080 Snowboarding and SSX, but with modern design principles. I haven't played a snowboarding game in a long time, I didn't know how much I missed it.
People can say Ubisoft doesn’t take chances but when for honor was declined by ea and activision for being too risky Ubisoft took a chance on it. And despite its flaws it’s a unique experience the other big 2 aren’t even challenging them on
I would love to hear you discuss Sega in a way similar to this, talking about all the crazy ideas they would try or greenlight, cancelling stuff like Streets of Rage on the Saturn, the 2 cancelled JSR games, the cancelled Vectorman PlayStation game, etc.
Thee Amstrad was a budget computer that was aimed at people who had never owned a computer before, it didn't have much under the hood but it was easy to use and very popular in France in the 1980s.
Toward the end you showed a clip from the Taito Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade game. Despite both being on the NES, having the same name, and nearly identical cover art, the UbiSoft and Taito Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade games are both entirely different.
I love this new format ! And for the record, the good way to say "Yves" is exactly like you say "Eve" in english because the "S" is silent ;) (But your french is really good on "Mange Caillou") + Hype : The Time Quest is the first game of Patrice Desilet ah ah !
"Little Nicky for the GameBoy Color, which, I'm not really sure exists..." Oh, I can confirm it does. I've played it. A lot. I'm terrible at it, so I've never beaten it, but I did play it a LOT back when I was young. It's one of only, like, three GameBoy games that we still know where is, actually, so I could play it right now if I bothered to find some batteries.
I have never seen an NA copy of VIP for PS2. I only have a copy for PS1. The PS2 is European only, with the blue disc. There are also differences between the two. The American version has more cutscenes, the European version doesn’t have them and instead opts for a more comic book look during those same scenes. I own both copies but don’t have any way of playing the PS2 version since I don’t have a European PS2. Before you ask...I have them for research purposes...
1st Ubisoft published game I played was B.A.T. II - The Koshan Conspiracy from 1992. I think I played it in 98, so 13 at the time. Incredible game for the time I think. Along with Police Quest 1 and Jones in the fast lane (Sierra baby!), it formed part of my early PC gaming memories.
Steep and The Crew (and their sequels) had pretty interesting ideas, but ended up being kinda just ok (though the sequels are certainly better). and yeah definitely they lean into the games-as-a-service model more than a little also a reason there's less interest at Ubi in putting out Prince of Persia games is that they have to pay licensing fees (or royalties? I don't remember) to the creators.
Yooooo! Donald Duck going Quackers was my jam back in the day. I didnt play a lot, but when I did I threw myself into the game. I guess I didnt remember Ubisoft publishing that. Wow. Thanks for that nostalgia trip.
Dude I love that king kong game so much it is v underrated, parts of it used to scare the crap out of me as a kid and playing today it still evokes that feeling as well
I was really hoping that during the King Kong release segment you'd mention that they actually released King Kong on PC twice, once for the PS2/Xbox release and again with 360 graphics to avoid making new PCs on the one platform that doesn't stick to hardware from any generation suffer. In some sad irony it was called "Gamer's Edition". Cool vid either way
So this video made me look at the wikipedia page for NCIS and good god. Apparently NCIS was originally a spin off of the show JAG when it was first released, so it is the longest running spin off show with the most spin offs. Cbs was also considering making a spin off of the Los Angles spin off called ncis Red but it got cancelled. Aparrently the universe of the show also contains those reboots of Magnum p.i., Macgyver, and Hawaii 5-0. So basically CBS has a safe tv action show cinematic universe.
Ubisoft Fans: "Give us Rayman 4!"
Ubisoft: "What's that? You want more Far Cry? Ok!"
Ubisoft: What's a Rayman?
Fans: It's that series you pushed into the corner in favor of Rabbids.
Ubisoft: OH, SO YOU WANT A NEW RABBIDS GAME THEN? YOU'VE GOT IT!
The platformer market is oversaturated as hell.
@@gt131970 I dunno, you could say the same for the sandbox genre, which Ubisoft is indulging in heavily right now.
I want another Rayman platformer entry so bad, I can taste Candy Land
Rayman is truly one franchise that's hard to hate.
I'm honestly astonished by the frequency in which you put out high quality, well researched, and entertaining content. You are absolutely doing what you were meant to, my friend. Keep it up!
I love your name
Was just about to say the same, stared with wha happun and I'm glad I checked out his other stuff. Truly a man of legend 😍
Pre-circle logo Ubisoft will always have a special place in my heart, a weird often quite smelly place, but a place none the less.
Seeing that logo on a box in my local shop always had me interested. It's hard to believe what's happened.
Yep, back then that old logo said a lot.
The holy trilogy of Ubisoft is Rayman, Splinter Cell and The Prince of Persia Trilogy, if we're looking at gameplay and quality
@@Enclavefakesoldier those two games back when they came out... for me they were kinda revolutionary as kid with how different and fun they were. Edit:were and still are
I think at this point Matt making new videos just to have a new intros
Shin Dee I like this as well
THEY'RE REAL GOOD THO
Better than just copy/pasting whatever shitty stream you did last week
That ending was epic as well
Speaking of: what IS that smooth track he's using?
Interviewer: So what type of games do you want to focus on publishing?
Ubisoft: yes
I might also add, that Ubi Soft's recent strategy might be due to a takeover attempt by Vivendi, owned by infamous (in France) media mogul Vincent Bolloré. Bolloré bought enough shares of Ubi Soft to have a seat in the administration of Ubi Soft, never hid his attempt to become the major shareholder of the company, and had a notoriously bad relationship with the Guillemot brothers, who were the current main holders.
This might explain the fact that Ubi Soft was so averse to taking risks, and relied on his franchises for the last few years, and still do so despite Bolloré having sold his shares and given up on the takeover. Why change something that works?
So basically, Ubisoft used to be like that guy who got tons of sex when he was younger, but now that he's middle aged is trying to make some safe investments.
maugos did you just classify me as Ubisoft...
ZING!
Fuck man, I'm Ubisoft... And I'm not even middle aged yet...
@@megamage911ah... but why would you f*** a man?
@@real6562 Really bro?
I think Rare would be an interesting subject for a video series like this.
@@LordPichuPal Are they, though? Are they *really* ?
@@LordPichuPal "hanging around" is the most generous way to describe where Rare is today.
Technicolor How the mighty have fallen :(
Tom Clancy's Animorphs? I'd totally play that.
How would Tobias use a gun?
@@Unotuchable he would have lasers on each wing, linked to his brain.
As always great video! Well researched and entertaining presentation!
Totes agree Matt is becoming quite the game researcher historian comedian
make a wha happen about THQ now, you gotta
I thought he already made that video, but it was Superbunnyhop actually
Yes I hope so - my first intro to the company was the original Red Faction (Volition), and it was one of my favorite games of the PS2 era!
Hype The Time Quest holds too much nostalgia for me to even judge it fairly. It's so good.
Do you think you could do an episode on Devolver Digital and how they have basically become The Major publisher for indie games?
have they?
I've never played one of theirs that hasn't been a ton of fun too.
I guess Ubisoft goes by the "throw enough shit at the wall and some of it will stick," business strategy.
Which makes sense when you consider how they are very, very hit or miss. Then even within their hits, there are some glaring problems that make you think "how did they fuck that up? It's such an obvious problem...".
Ahhh Donald Duck: Going Quackers. I remember getting that being the first game I ever got along with my GameCube. Glad to see someone else remembers it!
That survival horror "Cold Fear" was actually quite good. It could have reached Resident Evil level of popularity were it not for the budget and management issues forcing the devs to cut around the corners and cancel an entire segment of the game along with a couple of weapons and really creepy enemy types.
Matt McMuslces: The Scholared Documentarian
(Moral of the story, Ubisoft, make more Hooters games and King Kong ports!)
8:58, hold on, is that Holly Madison, former Playmate and Hefner Girlfriend... WAIT IT IS!)
I recently binge played all of the prince of persia by ubisoft.
I might get some hate for it but the 2008 Prince of Persia was by far my favorite.
If only it had better reception, I would have loved a second or third game in that vein.
It was interesting, but it deserved some flack for chopping the real ending of the game off and selling it as DLC.
You do good work. Everyone else in this scene spends all their time discussing the product; you get into the creative process, and industrial/corporate dynamics. It's good shit.
This was an extremely well made video about a publisher who used to take risk, but also found some core franchises to milk cows on. I will agree that they should take some risk every so often, like they did for Steep. Granted we don’t heard much from that any more, but my guess is that they are a company that is going to look for ideas to start franchises from so they can make great profits.
Ubisoft, alongside Ghostlight, also published Shin Megami Tensei III in Europe (as Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer's Call featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series).
so this is how dante got there
Was this Nocturne?
Holy shit, Buck Bumble! When my friends would come over I would always ask if they wanted to play Smash and when they weren't looking I would put Buck Bumble in and everytime that music started it was a mass of groans.
You should have said more about Deathrow. I rented that game in high school thinking it was a game about Death Row, but upon popping it in, was confronted with a fictional futuristic frisbee game where you could win by either scoring points or beating the other team into submission. Surreal.
After the sexual harassment scandal, the fact that Ubisoft published Hooters Road Trip, Charlie's Angels, and Lost: Via Domus isn't that surprising anymore.
Appreciating that Tex Murphy music at the video intro! :)
I THOUGHT that sounded familiar
That Little Nicky sprite looks like it could be a Bob's Burgers character.
You forgot about the greatest series Ubisoft had in the 90s their guitar teaching programs
Matt really does know some very talented editors
I bet if David Cage was making racing games he would make Hooters Road Trip instead of Ubi.
I was a alpha/beta tester at ubisoft for the farcry and splinter cell games, we played on an emulated didn exist yet wii with the biggest controller ive ever seen in my life.
The intro to your video - I was thinking about signing up for Uplay+ to try out the new Ghost Recon Breakpoint, but then I saw the games that were advertised and realized that company specializes in this one type of game. It's either straight up Far Cry, or third person action games that all somehow function similarly. They might be good games, but getting access to all of the Assassins Creed, Watch_Dogs, Far Cry, and Ghost Recon Wildlands/Breakpoint are all kind of the same experience. Thank you for pointing that out.
It's crazy to think The World Ends With You could've been in this segment. It wasn't a flop persay, but an IP that was left dead and forgotten for 14 years, only having life thanks to the fans making fan art and other content showing there's still an audience for it
Man I love these deep dives, amazing work!
You really undersold UbiSoft's efforts here. They put out a lot of solid games, tie-in games included.
Loved this! The computer they made their name on in the late 80s (if anyone cares!) was the Amstrad CPC - the 3rd biggest selling 8-bit micro in Europe. Always the also-ran in its home (UK) market, but sold massive numbers in France and Spain, and Germany under the "Schneider" brand.
Some brilliant memories in there!
I feel like you didn’t play that obscure “cell shaded shooter game” based off of an obscure comic, called XIII otherwise you probably would’ve had some good stuff to say about it. XIII had a great engaging story, fun action rich gameplay and featured big voice actors like Adam west. People still play the PC version online today. It’s definitely one of my favorite games.
Indeed. XIII, along with Splinter Cell, are the best games Ubisoft ever published. It was a mistake not to make a sequel.
Oh I had PC version for awhile and it got me hooked. Didn't get past last lvl.. Now I have ps2 version just waiting me to look at it
Matt is really amazing at doing these sort of videos
Damn, some really tight script-writing in this, nice stuff!
I appreciate Matt keeping the incredible Sly Cooper soundtrack alive with many of his videos
I am absolutely floored. How did they look at Donald Duck of all characters and make the mental leap of, " This Donald Duck game is awesome...Ohhhh, you know what?? We should totally do something with Prince of Persia!! People will love it!!" It's really amazing where these game ideas come from.
Holy shit, how the hell did I forget how bonkers Ubisoft was?
Great work Matt!
Holy crap, I had that Star Wars Ep 3 game and it was amazing. The animation had me shocked even as a child.
Remember Ubisoft's Petz games? Like Dogz? And then Catz, which was exactly Dogz, but with the dog models being replaced with cat models?
Matt I love your deep dives on the industry. Thank you.
20:25 - "It was behcuz...!" Why did you hit that so hard, Matt. I think I rolled that back about five times lol
Man, probably Ubisoft and Blizzard really got a chunk of my childhood and teen years. It's really makes me sad that years ago Ubisoft got a bad reputation and now Blizzard. I really wish they go back to it's roots like what they used to do.
I remember playing Evil Twin on my Dreamcast when my PC's gpu got fried because I'm playing too much Diablo 2.
This has to be one of the best videos you have done sir! Loved it!
In conclusion we've all played a ubisoft game knowingly or not
4:45 "His name would be continually slapped onto games long after his death" They do that shit with the books too. The top 1/3 of the cover will be TOM CLANCY and on the bottom, it'll have a tiny little "written by not Tom Clancy"
Every time a screen tears an Ubisoft employee takes their antipsychotics, that's my explanation
I remember "Dinosaur" a lot more than I should, specifically because I was 5 years old when it came out. If you know any 5 year old who doesn't think dinosaurs are fucking rad, I'll give you $5(...but also there's something wrong with that kid, and they should probably be put on a watchlist somewhere...)
upvoted for the intro alone. Loved the roman numerals for 2019.
Any love for "Steep" out here? They gave it away with PS Plus in Jan. 2019 but I just started playing it last week. I'm hooked on this game. It reminds me of 1080 Snowboarding and SSX, but with modern design principles. I haven't played a snowboarding game in a long time, I didn't know how much I missed it.
People can say Ubisoft doesn’t take chances but when for honor was declined by ea and activision for being too risky Ubisoft took a chance on it. And despite its flaws it’s a unique experience the other big 2 aren’t even challenging them on
I would love to hear you discuss Sega in a way similar to this, talking about all the crazy ideas they would try or greenlight, cancelling stuff like Streets of Rage on the Saturn, the 2 cancelled JSR games, the cancelled Vectorman PlayStation game, etc.
Anyone remember Tom Clancy's Endwar? It was an RTS that was fully voice controlled
Thee Amstrad was a budget computer that was aimed at people who had never owned a computer before, it didn't have much under the hood but it was easy to use and very popular in France in the 1980s.
The fact that Blood Dragon was abandoned is a sin against god that proves humanity doesn’t deserve forgiveness.
Holy shit Matt you're really becoming a true beast with these videos
Holy shit, the intro music is from Under a Killing Moon. That's a blast from the past...
Buck Bumble was my jam when I was a kid tho, shit was tight.
Toward the end you showed a clip from the Taito Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade game. Despite both being on the NES, having the same name, and nearly identical cover art, the UbiSoft and Taito Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade games are both entirely different.
I love this new format !
And for the record, the good way to say "Yves" is exactly like you say "Eve" in english because the "S" is silent ;)
(But your french is really good on "Mange Caillou")
+
Hype : The Time Quest is the first game of Patrice Desilet ah ah !
18:31 When he said farted out, I literally farted. The universe works in mysterious ways.
How about looking at Agetec for a future episode? You know, that weird publisher that would release anything obscure, Japanese and odd.
Man Matt's really a fuckin genius with this stuff
Evolution Worlds was a combination of Evolution 1 & 2 for the Dreamcast. It's a turn based RPG with really long cut scenes
"Little Nicky for the GameBoy Color, which, I'm not really sure exists..." Oh, I can confirm it does. I've played it. A lot. I'm terrible at it, so I've never beaten it, but I did play it a LOT back when I was young. It's one of only, like, three GameBoy games that we still know where is, actually, so I could play it right now if I bothered to find some batteries.
Fascinating information about the Prince of Percia. Have a like!
Also, love the style of this series.
And now they make us climb towers to reveal maps.
Not gonna lie, I'd ADORE a port of King Kong on the switch! I loved this game so much. If any movie game deserves a remaster, it's that one.
I have never seen an NA copy of VIP for PS2. I only have a copy for PS1. The PS2 is European only, with the blue disc. There are also differences between the two. The American version has more cutscenes, the European version doesn’t have them and instead opts for a more comic book look during those same scenes. I own both copies but don’t have any way of playing the PS2 version since I don’t have a European PS2. Before you ask...I have them for research purposes...
That was like condensing a worldwide roadtrip into a 22 minute video. So many incredible sights.
Is the “Hey y’all, welcome to Georgia” Hooters girl Holly Madison?
I was thinking the same thing and the fact that it is is hilarious!
1st Ubisoft published game I played was B.A.T. II - The Koshan Conspiracy from 1992. I think I played it in 98, so 13 at the time. Incredible game for the time I think. Along with Police Quest 1 and Jones in the fast lane (Sierra baby!), it formed part of my early PC gaming memories.
Matt seems way more into the video game historian work. Good to see that.
NCIS aka the show that never dies.
I love buck bumble But, now that song is gonna be stuck in my head for hours
Armored Core was done by FromSoftware. same people that did the souls games
The worst thing is, if Ubisoft ported King Kong to the Switch, it'd sell pretty well
Steep and The Crew (and their sequels) had pretty interesting ideas, but ended up being kinda just ok (though the sequels are certainly better). and yeah definitely they lean into the games-as-a-service model more than a little
also a reason there's less interest at Ubi in putting out Prince of Persia games is that they have to pay licensing fees (or royalties? I don't remember) to the creators.
Really enjoyed this video format. Hope to see more.
I haven't played a Ubisoft game in like a decade so I deadass did not realize those actually were different games until it was said.
They did make a Mario and Rabbids crossover turn based strategy shooting game.
I'd say that's rather... Unique, and AWESOME.
11 seconds in and I'm already sold by the intro music. Good shit, Matt 👌🏾
Yooooo! Donald Duck going Quackers was my jam back in the day. I didnt play a lot, but when I did I threw myself into the game. I guess I didnt remember Ubisoft publishing that. Wow. Thanks for that nostalgia trip.
I'm already fully on-board with that slick use of the Sly Cooper OST in the beginning
let's be honest, we are all waiting for tom clancy's rabbids' creed
Man, Buck Bumble. That title song is just magical
Best worldwide publisher and one of the few which keeps supporting their games even if they fail at launch.
Dude I love that king kong game so much it is v underrated, parts of it used to scare the crap out of me as a kid and playing today it still evokes that feeling as well
Was that a young Holly Madison in the Hooters game???
“Peur sur Amityville “..... weird I grew up in Amityville NY. 😂😂😂
Did you ever go by the haunted murder house?
Nobody:
Not one person:
Ubisoft in 2008: 17:30 - *ACTUAL PHYSICAL LAZER TAG*
I hear that Sly Cooper music in the back, nice
HYPE THE TIME QUEST! Holy shit.. that wave of nostalgia was enough to give me physical whiplash
I was really hoping that during the King Kong release segment you'd mention that they actually released King Kong on PC twice, once for the PS2/Xbox release and again with 360 graphics to avoid making new PCs on the one platform that doesn't stick to hardware from any generation suffer. In some sad irony it was called "Gamer's Edition". Cool vid either way
The Revenge of the Sith on DS was no joke a pretty awesome beat 'em up.
So this video made me look at the wikipedia page for NCIS and good god. Apparently NCIS was originally a spin off of the show JAG when it was first released, so it is the longest running spin off show with the most spin offs. Cbs was also considering making a spin off of the Los Angles spin off called ncis Red but it got cancelled. Aparrently the universe of the show also contains those reboots of Magnum p.i., Macgyver, and Hawaii 5-0. So basically CBS has a safe tv action show cinematic universe.