Ubisoft's Star Wars Outlaws Underperforms, Impacting Share Price
Ubisoft's highly anticipated Star Wars Outlaws, intended as a financial turning point for the company, has reportedly underperformed in sales, causing a dip in Ubisoft's share price. Despite positive critical reception, sales have been described as sluggish.
This underperformance follows Ubisoft's first-quarter 2024-25 sales report, where the company highlighted Star Wars Outlaws and Assassin's Creed Shadows (AC Shadows) as key drivers for future growth and financial recovery. While the company noted a 15% increase in session days across consoles and PC, primarily due to Games-as-a-Service, and a 7% year-on-year increase in monthly active users (MAUs) to 38 million, the Star Wars title's sales haven't met expectations.
J.P. Morgan analyst Daniel Kerven lowered his sales projection for Star Wars Outlaws from 7.5 million units to 5.5 million units by March 2025, citing the game's struggle to meet initial sales forecasts despite positive reviews.
The impact on Ubisoft's share price was immediate. On September 3rd, the share price fell 5.1% on Monday and a further 2.4% by Tuesday morning, reaching its lowest point since 2015 and contributing to an overall drop of over 30% since the beginning of the year.
This discrepancy between critical acclaim and player reception is highlighted by Metacritic's user score of 4.5/10, contrasting sharply with more positive professional reviews, such as Game8's 90/100 rating. The reasons behind this disconnect remain to be seen, but the financial implications for Ubisoft are clear. The company will likely be looking to Assassin's Creed Shadows to help offset the shortfall.
