Halo 5, Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate & Star Wars Battlefront all sold below expectations – GameStop

Halo 5, Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate & Star Wars Battlefront all sold below expectations – GameStop
David Scammell Updated on by

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Halo 5: Guardians, Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate and Star Wars Battlefront all fell short of sales expectations, according to US retail giant GameStop, leading to a “challenging” quarter for the chain.

Speaking during the firm’s Q3 2015 earnings call last night (via Seeking Alpha), CEO Julian Raines explained that “the quarter was challenging due to underperformance of Halo and Assassin’s Creed late in the quarter and lack of sales acceleration from hardware price cuts during the quarter.”

COO Tony Bartel later added that “EA’s Star Wars Battlefront fell short of expectations” as well.

“[W]e’re not going to quantify it in actual number,” Bartel said discussing Battlefront’s lower than expected sales. “But we had high expectations that diminished somewhat as it got closer, and then it failed to hit those lowered expectations.”

Sales are expected to pick back up once Star Wars: The Force Awakens releases in December, however, with GameStop expecting it to be “one of the strongest titles for the holiday seasons” despite the “slow start”.

The retailer also moved to squash claims that Halo 5 may have sold more digital copies than the average title, stating that its “research indicates it performed at about the same level as other titles”.

When quizzed on the research later in the call, Bartel added that the firm is “in full understanding and in full belief that there is no game that was launched this quarter that was materially above a normal digital percent at launch.”

Microsoft initially stated that Halo 5 had “made history as the biggest Halo launch and fastest-selling Xbox One exclusive game to-date, with more than $400 million in global sales of Halo 5: Guardians games and hardware.” The game is also reported to have made £7.7m in the UK on day one.

Total sales figures have not been disclosed.

UK sales of Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, meanwhile, were reported to be the lowest for a mainline entry bar last year’s 360/PS3 release Assassin’s Creed: Rogue, although again, sales figures have not been revealed.

As for Star Wars Battlefront, EA earlier said that it expects to sell 13 million units by March 2016, up from its previously projected 9-10 million. Review scores, however, were likely lower than the publisher had anticipated.

The game became the fourth fastest-selling game of 2015 following its release last week, trailing behind FIFA 16, Black Ops 3 and Fallout 4. EA has yet to announce sales figures or confirm whether it has revised sales expectations.

It isn’t all bad news, though. According to Bartel, Fallout 4 and Black Ops 3 both met GameStop’s initial projections, with Bethesda’s RPG reported to have sold over 500,000 units in the UK during its launch week.

Source: seekingalpha.com