‘Star Wars: Battlefront’ Sells 12 Million Copies, ‘Star Wars’ Video Games Benefit From ‘The Force Awakens’
If you thought Star Wars: Battlefront was skinny on content, you were probably right — yet this fact didn’t deter millions of players eager to hop into the Millennium Falcon to take on the Empire. Star Wars: Battlefront, the reboot of the popular franchise in the early 2000s, has been estimated to hit close to its 13 million copy sales goal before the new year arrived.
Speaking with Fortune, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter speculates that Star Wars: Battlefront has sold approximately 6 million copies in November, and a subsequent 6 million in December. This puts the total copies sold at 12 million, quite the number for a game that by all accounts is thin on total content. Most gamers buy games because of projected value, and many believed the lack of a true single player, as relayed by Forbes, and a lower amount of split-screen modes compared to the multiplayer experience, were detrimental to the package. Yet, it seems nostalgia has won out, with Star Wars: Battlefront selling fourth best in the November’s NPD rankings.
Pachter estimates that Star Wars: Battlefront has brought Electronic Arts (EA) an estimated $660 million in revenue, assuming that the game sold at an average of $55 each. While Battlefront has seen some sales recently, with EA’s Origin service listing the game around $35, the bulk of these sales seem to have come when the game was listed at full retail, so it’s not a stretch to assume this.
Much of the Star Wars: Battlefront sales seem to have come on console, if concurrent player stats can be any indication. While 12 million copies of Star Wars: Battlefront might have been sold, far fewer people are playing the game during peak hours. This is especially noticeable on PC, where the player count is far lower than its console counterpart, according to SWBStats.com. While this is a third party site, so the data may not be exact, it is telling. Currently, as of this writing, 250,000 players are playing across three platforms, the PS4 being dominant. PS4 has 150,405 players, while Xbox One touts 86,857 players. PC, on the other hand, despite being the most stable and best performing version, lags far behind, seeing only 21,647 players at the moment. Sony’s marketing tie-in definitely helped it here, but it’s interesting to see the PC lag so far behind, though that could be due in part to players shunning EA’s Origin service in favor of purchasing through Steam, where Battlefront isn’t for sale. Having tried to play the PC version in recent weeks, the lower player count is definitely felt, with it taking minutes to find a game, with it often timing out before players are found, where as on the PS4 and Xbox One, connecting is almost instantaneous by comparison.
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[Images via Electronic Arts, Disney]
