Sales of Star Wars Battlefront are not underperforming as recently suggested by GameStop COO Tony Bartel, EA COO Peter Moore has said speaking at the Credit Suisse Technology, Media and Telecom Broker Conference.
Last week GameStop COO Tony Bartel said that “EA’s Star Wars Battlefront fell short of expectations”.
He also noted: “[W]e’re not going to quantify it in actual number, but we had high expectations that diminished somewhat as it got closer, and then it failed to hit those lowered expectations.”
But according to Moore, there’s nothing for investors to worry about.
“The comments were interesting and little bit of a surprise to us particularly as the CFO in the call then started to correct the COO as the call went on,” explained Moore. “So from our perspective I’m here to reaffirm our guidance of 13 million units sold in for the fiscal year.
“There is no weakness that is perceptible yet in the title and I want everybody understand that based on where we think this title is and based on the marketing beats ahead of us in particular the movie launch over the next two weeks we feel very comfortable we’re going to hit the guidance that we’ve given analysts, investors and Wall Street alike.”
Shipping 13 million is obviously different to selling through 13 million units to consumers, so we’ll have to wait and see if the new year brings stock fire sales as retailers look to clear unsold inventory.
In the UK Battlefront has slipped to third in the charts on its second week of release, falling behind both FIFA 16 and Black Ops 3.
Source: Seeking Alpha
