Lofty Goals? Battlefield 1 (15 Million) and Titanfall 2 (10 Million)
We all know the hype train has long left the station for EAโs upcoming Battlefield 1. When it was announced the reaction was almost unanimously positive as it felt like a strong direction for the series. It also helped that the reveal for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare didnโt really go so well. While we can probably safely assume that Call of Duty will still sell relatively well anyways we wonder if Activision is as confident in their product as EA is in its own.
During Electronic Artsโ quarterly results conference call, company CFO Blake Jorgensen spoke highly of the companyโs expectations for both Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2 but with a little hesitance in regards to getting too far ahead of themselves.
First, we were very pleased with the reaction of players at our EA Play, I think you got a chance to play it yourself. Itโs been very very popular, and feedback has been extremely strong.
We tend not to raise guidance too early in the year. We would like to see a little more demand metrics on all of our products, particularly Battlefield and Titanfall before we make that decision.
Gamescom is a very important beat that is coming up in a couple of weeks in Europe, and then obviously the potential for betas around those products will help us derive better demand metrics.
While Jorgensen remained reserved about getting ahead in metrics he used buzz words like they were going out of style like โsuper-optimisticโ and โvery excitedโ to indicate they were all expecting big things. He also went on to explain that a typical year for the Battlefield franchise is 15 million and that their current projection is โslightly under thatโ although theyโre hoping that the current excitement will propel sales well past it.
When pressed about Titanfall 2 he noted that while the original sold just over seven million total units that their expectations for the sequel are a fairly reserved โ9 to 10 million unitsโ. Considering the sequel is making its multiplatform debut one might expect that number to be higher but weโll just have to wait and see.