Ubisoft has acquired the Pune, India studio of Gameloft - the developer that produced the DS version of Assassion's Creed among others.

No announcement as to the nitty-gritty (the cash) has been made. The official line being that the, "operation is subject to normal closing conditions and is expected to close during the first quarter of the 2008-09 fiscal year."

The announcement comes two months after the French publisher announced it was to start an operation in Singapore, which is due to start production this summer.

The Gameloft operation was "established end of 2006, the studio has a team of 120 developers and testers who will initially focus on porting titles to handheld consoles and reinforcing Ubisoft's testing teams. The goal is to become 200-developpers strong in 12 months time and to reach a team of 500 in the coming years."

"Following on the recent announcement of our new Singapore studio, this acquisition will reinforce Ubisoft's presence in Asia and the southeast region in particular. India has a promising future in the videogame industry and this is an opportunity for us to establish ourselves in the country," stated Christine Burgess-Quémard, executive director, worldwide studios at Ubisoft.

So, despite the French tax-credit scheme that was agreed in December last year, Ubisioft continues to look to south east Asia for its code shops. Bearing in mind that its second biggest studio globally was set up in 1996 in Shanghai, the Indian move is certainly not a new form of expansion for the Raving Rabbids publisher.

The acquisition does, however, show how things can change in the video games industry. Back in July last year Ubisoft sold its stake in Gameloft (13,367,923 shares). This was done in a form called an 'equity swap' - the details of which can be found here.

Back then, Yves Guillemot, chief executive officer of Ubisoft, said, "The video game market offers numerous internal and external growth opportunities. We have therefore decided to sell our stake in Gameloft in order to focus on Ubisoft's expansion and strengthen our ability to seize all such growth opportunities. Following this sale Ubisoft and Gameloft will continue their productive collaboration at a purely operational level, particularly concerning the utilization of Ubisoft's brands on mobile phones."

Looks like that purely operational level has, well, levelled up.