Ubisoft's Murray Pannel

It's very difficult to tell - if we'd halved our budgets, what would have happened? As a marketing guy I've seen evidence in the past that if you reduce it too much and rely solely on the core gamer to buy your products, you limit your sales potential.

So it's a balance you have to strike, between investment and return on that investment, but I think in the case of Assassin's Creed and other games like it, it was money well spent.

I think if you look at the industry there were a few raised eyebrows in terms of what we'd be delivering in twelve months. But E3 has proven to me that any concerns that anyone had about quality or content are somewhat unfounded.

It's delivering a brand new gaming experience in terms of 16 hours-plus gameplay - and the icing on the cake is the innovative and interesting multi-player modes, which will be a great proposition for people that enjoy that.

From what I've seen I'm in no doubt that this will be a great standalone game, a triple-A blockbuster title like Assassin's Creed II was last year - and we'll be investing similar amounts to make sure it is so.

I think the name 'Assassin's Creed III' won't be used until it's a brand new kind of adventure, timescale and the rest of it. So I think there will be an Assassin's III potentially at some point in time, but the reason for calling this one Brotherhood is because while it's a separate, new, standalone game, it's within the same universe of Assassin's II.

Now we've exposed it at E3, the PR has kicked in, and the decision to go on TV was very much driven by some of the success we saw back in 2009. It's difficult to attribute specific day one launch volumes to that, but in terms of pre-orders we saw huge interest, which is a good barometer of how interested people are in the title. That helps us gauge how successful going early on TV is.

I think also, given that we hit well over 12 million people in that World Cup spot, it positions the game as the triple-A blockbuster that we want it to be. In people's minds they see that and think if it's being advertised in serious spots on TV - that early - it must be something I need to think about and be conscious of.

It was a brand-led spot, showcasing the story of Ezio - now working for the Brotherhood against the evil Roman Empire. It wasn't just that the game is coming, go pre-order it - it was setting the scene for the story of Brotherhood, and then the call to action was that if you're interested, there's a pre-order waiting for you.

I think we're early, there's no doubt about it, but I think it sets the stall out for Brotherhood being one of the triple-A blockbusters you need to consider for Christmas this time.

I haven't seen any plans on the cards for this year, no. However, we are working closely with Sony, on marketing and content - there's a multi-player beta which will be exclusively on the Sony platform, which will be another key marketing and PR element that we can activate pre-launch, to get people engaged in advance.