EA Financials: Star Wars Battlefront Sells Over 13 Million

It appears that EA officially sold (shipped) over 13 million units of the aforementioned Star Wars propelled game franchise.

The publisher shared the news in its Q3 financial report for the 2016 fiscal year.

Though the bulk of “Battlefront” sales were physical copies – “It was a very big gifting title”, finance chief Blake Jorgensen said in an interview-EA posted more revenue from digital sales during the fiscal third quarter than any other in its history.

The highly anticipated first-person shooter game was launched in mid-November, halfway through the third quarter and a month ahead of the release of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”. On a GAAP basis the company swung to a loss of $45 million from a profit of $142 million one year ago.

With a little more after-hours volume under its belt, Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:EA) is now down just 7.9% following its earnings conference call.

Earlier, the company expected adjusted earnings of about $3.00 per share and adjusted revenues of $4.50 billion.

“We’re trying to stay tightly connected to the “Star Wars” beat for future movies, and we will obviously in future Star Wars games be able to tap the new characters and vehicles and so forth”, Jorgensen said.

The “ultimate star wars experience” given by Battlefront was somewhat uninteresting due to the lack of story and varied multiplayer modes.

But analysts were expecting revenue to rise to US$1.81 billion.

CEO Andrew Wilson talked up the appeal of the company’s “Star Wars: Battlefront” title as well as “Madden NFL”.

The Redwood City, California-based company’s shares were trading at US$64.22 (RM266.43) after the bell, down 8% from their closed of US$69.79 (RM289.53) in regular trade.

Looking forward, EA now expects adjusted earnings of about $3.04 per share and adjusted revenues of $4.52 billion for 2016. EA will release “Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2”, “UFC 2” and “Unravel” in its fourth quarter.