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Financial Firm Lowers Sales Expectations Of Titanfall 2 From Nine Million To Six Million
Released just yesterday, Titanfall 2 has garnered a huge amount of positive reception, including fellow GI editor Javy Gwatlney's own glowing review. Unfortunately, those good vibes don't seem to have translated to impressive sales.
According to a report from CNBC, financial services firm Cowen & Co. lowered its market rating for EA (Titanfall 2's publisher) from "outform" to "market perform," meaning it doesn't expect the company's stock to outdo the competition in the coming season. Cowen specifically cites Titanfall 2's low expected sales as the reason. "We believe that 'Titanfall 2' sales are going to be substantially disappointing, enough to offset upside from 'Battlefield 1,'" analyst Doug Creutz wrote in a letter to investors. ""We expect a correction in shares between now and early next year as we believe the stock is priced for upside to current Street consensus." The firm has lowered its sales expectations for the game from 9 million units to 5-6 million.
Cowen says the biggest reason for this the timing of Titanfall 2's release between Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. "We suspect EA believed that by launching two shooters next to Call of Duty it could put a large dent in its biggest competitor, but instead EA appears to have wound up shooting its own foot off." wrote Creutz. For perspective, Cowen expects Battlefield 1 to sell 16.5 million units. Fellow GI editor Matt Bertz himself recently criticized Titanfall 2's release date, and said EA should delay the game until next year.
Our Take
Sales projections are not dogma, but this doesn't exactly bode well for Titanfall 2. The bet EA made was that Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2 would appeal to two different, non-overlapping audiences, and that its timing would eat into Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare's sales during the holiday season. We'll see if that bet pays off, but early word does not seem promising.
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