High-profile new releases like Halo 5: Guardians and Assassin's Creed Syndicate underperformed during the quarter ended October 31, GameStop CEO Paul Raines told investors and analysts. Star Wars Battlefront launched on November 17, outside of that reporting period, but sales of this game, too, came in below what the company had modeled, GameStop president Tony Bartel added.
On the subject of Battlefront's poor performance at GameStop, Bartel said, "We're not going to quantify it in terms of actual numbers, but we had high expectations that diminished somewhat as it got closer and it failed to hit those lowered expectations."
Later in the call, Bartel said he anticipates that Battlefront will rebound, in part as a result of the buzz surrounding Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Overall, Battlefront is expected to be one the retailer's top-selling titles during GameStop's holiday quarter.
Another possibility of why Battlefront underperformed at GameStop could be because GameStop's Black Friday advertisement leaked a full week before the game was released, management said. The Battlefront PS4 bundle is one of the retailer's featured deals during the shopping bonanza, which could mean that some fans saw the ad and withheld their purchase until Black Friday.
New releases that did reach GameStop's sales expectations included Call of Duty: Black Ops III and Fallout 4.
Bartel went on to say there is no reason to believe Halo 5's digital sales were higher than what they were modeling, based on conversations with Microsoft. "We are in constant discussions with all publishers and platform-holders and we believe that all major full-game titles launched in this quarter were in line with previously announced digital download levels," he said.
"We are in full understanding and full belief that there is no game that was launched this quarter that was materially above a normal digital percent at launch."
Entire article: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/halo-5-star-wars-battlefront-assassins-creed-syndi/1100-6432535/
