Titanfall 2 Sales Struggle, Battlefield 1 Has Strong Launch
It seems like Titanfall 2 will fail to meet the expectations of publisher EA and analysts, with research firm Cowen & Company reporting that the sales projection for the game has been dramatically reduced since its release last week. According to the company, the shooter is only expected to sell around 5 million copies, a significant drop compared to its initial forecast, which was originally around the 9 million mark.
This poor performance relative to estimates is despite the fact that the game has received a strong critical reaction, including a current Metacritic score of 91. The problem seems to be that the game has released sandwiched between Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. Although EA CEO Andrew Wilson was confident that this wouldn’t be a problem as he felt that Titanfall 2 was a very different game to those two alternatives with a very different audience.
“[Shooters are] a giant category in our industry, $4.5 billion, there’s a very broad and diverse set of players who are looking to fulfill different gameplay motivations,” he said in May. “Some people play very quick play, some people play more strategic, some people want both in different context.”
While many questioned the wisdom of releasing two prominent first=person shooters so close to each other, especially considering both Titanfall 2 and Battlefield 1 are published by EA, it does not seem to have negatively affected the DICE release. Figures released in the UK show that Battlefield 1 outsold Battlefield 4 and Hardline added together in terms of week one sales as it claimed the top spot from FIFA 17.