‘Star Wars: Battlefront’: EA Hopes To Leverage Movie Hype Into 10 Million Sales
Electronic Arts spoke a little about Star Wars: Battlefront during an earnings call on Tuesday. Unsurprisingly, executives with the mega-publisher are betting that the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens will help boost sales of the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC shooter.
Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgenson admitted during the Q&A session of the earnings call that Electronic Arts was able to leverage some of the hype surrounding Star Wars: The Force Awakens with Battlefront. The game received its gameplay debut at the Star Wars Celebration last month, where it became a hot topic of positive discussion because of the graphics, but also negative comments based on it not containing the same gameplay features and content from Battlefront II.
On November 17th your Star Wars battle fantasies become reality https://t.co/Scc6HoLOLT #StarWarsBattlefront
— EAStarWars (@EAStarWars) April 18, 2015
Jorgenson and Electronic Arts are still high on Star Wars: Battlefront despite negative comments from gamers. The combination of the Battlefront franchise brand now in the hands of the Battlefield development house, combined with the movie release hype, is hard to look past.
“For us, we’re thinking about it with two bookends,” Jorgenson explained. “One bookend is the historical Battlefront, which did roughly 9 million units. The other bookend is our core first-person shooter franchise of Battlefield, which typically does around 15 million units. So I think in our guidance, we’ve roughly put in there roughly 9 million to 10 million units for the title, with we believe some upside obviously if things goes well. It is Gen-4-only and PC, and so that needs to get factored into people’s thinking, but it is a very exciting title.”
The sales results for Battlefield Hardline show that the decision to make Star Wars: Battlefront a PS4, Xbox One, and PC only release was a smart one. The PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game only accounted for approximately 20 percent of the game’s total sales. This was reflected in the April NPD sales results, which saw sales for both last generation consoles take steep drops.
New Sullust details and images at http://t.co/JaXPmZXEsJ #StarWarsBattlefront #StarWarsDay pic.twitter.com/jatCFeLeyq
— EAStarWars (@EAStarWars) May 4, 2015
Star Wars: Battlefront is set to release on November 17. It will come with 12 maps at launch set on the planets of Tatooine, Hoth, Endor, and Sullest. There is no single-player campaign but there will be playable missions that can be played solo or co-op. Space missions are out but vehicle combat is still in, both in the air and on the ground.
Expect another flood of Star Wars: Battlefront details at this year’s E3 conference in June.
Do you think Electronic Arts sales expectations for Star Wars: Battlefront is on point or optimistic? Sound off in the comments below.
[Images via Star Wars: Battlefront]
