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Insider-Gaming: Star Wars Outlaws Has Sold Just 1 Million Copies In The Month Since It Launched

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derby_440

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"Insider Gaming hasn’t been able to learn what the expected sales figure was for Star Wars Outlaws, but we have secured a current sales figure from sources close to the game. At the time of writing, Star Wars Outlaws has just ticked over one million sales worldwide.

To put that into perspective, we reported in January 2024 that three months after Assassin’s Creed Mirage had hit the market, it had secured five million sales."
insider-gaming.com

Star Wars Outlaws Has Sold Just 1 Million Copies In The Month Since It Launched

Star Wars Outlaws has sold just one million units since being released at the tail end of August 2024. Check out the full story here.
insider-gaming.com insider-gaming.com

This is disaster. Budget is likely >>$300m. Even taking in to account very high initial average price, Ubisoft have to pay 30% fee to platforms and likely 10-15% to Disney.
 
This would be much slower than even Persona 3 Reload.
It's a catastrophic sale figure.
 
We can see where it lands on the NPD/Circana charts. If it lands around Suicide squad/Persona in the LTD rankings then the sales estimate would seem about right.

​

 
BoktaiFan said:
We can see where it lands on the NPD/Circana charts. If it lands around Suicide squad/Persona in the LTD rankings then the sales estimate would seem about right.

​

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NPD would be the biggest market for Outlaws, i believe that Persona 3 Reload is much higher that 1M right now too
 
Damage2 said:
NPD would be the biggest market for Outlaws, i believe that Persona 3 Reload is much higher that 1M right now too
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I would doubt Persona had much legs. It's been working it's way down on the YTD chart in NPD and never passed Suicide Squad a game with little legs to speak of. In japan it doesn't seem like it had much legs either.
 
BoktaiFan said:
I would doubt Persona had much legs. It's been working it's way down on the YTD chart in NPD and never passed Suicide Squad a game with little legs to speak of. In japan it doesn't seem like it had much legs either.
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Its always up there in top 20 on Steam when its on sale and PSN in the TOP 30.

Dont forget that NPD its revenue based, people underestimate this game legs
 
Oof, shocking underperformance.
ArkhamFantasy said:
I think Ubisoft needs to have a very serious conversation about their open world formula and how to distinguish new titles from their old ones.
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Issue is in the marketing department for this one as it's a very different game from the standard Ubisoft formula, they just didn't get that across very well.

There's a culmination of lots of factors here, this kind of flop doesn't happen due to one thing alone. Star Wars brand, marketing, bugs and issues with the game and more all play a part.
 
Xevross said:
Oof, shocking underperformance.

Issue is in the marketing department for this one as it's a very different game from the standard Ubisoft formula, they just didn't get that across very well.

There's a culmination of lots of factors here, this kind of flop doesn't happen due to one thing alone. Star Wars brand, marketing, bugs and issues with the game and more all play a part.
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Yeah this game kinda inherited the baggage from Star Wars AND Ubisoft. It was climbing a massive uphill battle already.

1 million in a month... that's really low, though it's hard for me to really grasp how bad that is until the Persona and Yakuza comparisons came up. Like goddamn.
 
Scoop said:
How credible is Insider Gaming?
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Not very credible. There's no doubt Ubisoft is very disappointed with Star Wars Outlaws sales relative to their lofty >5 million launch expectations. But "just barely" 1 million sales worldwide in a month is rather dubious, a massive bomb relative to Ubisoft's massive marketing budget, and I personally don't believe it. That's the danger with trusting and signal boosting any random "insider" who throws out any rumor they get for clout. Leak culture is insidious imo.
 
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Aquamarine said:
Not very credible. There's no doubt Ubisoft is very disappointed with Star Wars Outlaws sales relative to their lofty >5 million launch expectations. But "just barely" 1 million sales worldwide in a month is rather dubious, a massive bomb relative to Ubisoft's massive marketing budget, and I personally don't believe it. That's the danger with trusting and signal boosting any random "insider" who throws out any rumor they get for clout. Leak culture is insidious imo.
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Tom Henderson is one of the most respected insiders in the industry with near-perfect record. Comparing him with random "insiders" is ridiculous.

ArkhamFantasy said:
I think Ubisoft needs to have a very serious conversation about their open world formula and how to distinguish new titles from their old ones.
Click to expand...

Star Wars Outlaws is different from their traditional ow formula. The problem is in Ubisoft itself, its reputation and marketing department. This company is producing bomb after bomb for years now. Only Assassin's Creed is some sort of exception.
 
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SkyerIst said:
Spider-Man 2 needed to sell 7.2 million units to break even...
AAA/AAAA industry is tough.
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What a fuck?

The original must have had 3 times less of a budget, and I can't tell why Spider-Man 2 would cost that much more to make.

No wonder Ubisoft is hurting, why would anyone make a triple-A game these days at all?

These big publishers better learn how to make double-A games and scale things down.
 
SkyerIst said:
Tom Henderson is one of the most respected insiders in the industry with near-perfect record. Comparing him with "random" leakers is ridiculous.
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Our own Aquamarine is one of the most respected insiders in the industry with near-perfect record about sales performances. Calling them "ridiculous" is ridiculous

:p

seriously though - I have seen this happening recently with Aquamarine, Welfare, Fisico or Chris: we DO have "internal" reliable sources about numbers; give them credit, even asking for clarification or disagreeing with their takes
 
It's possible Tom Henderson's source at Ubisoft doesn't have the most accurate sales figures, but Tom himself is definitely not making shit up as some "random insider" - he is probably the most reliable western games journalist outside of Jason Schreier.
 
Insider Gaming has reported multiple times Ubisoft CCU/sale figure in the past, so I am inclined to take his report as based on a actual source.

But it's also possible the source was wrong or "1 million" is rounded down from any figure below 2 millions.
 
Gimmick said:
What a fuck?

The original must have had 3 times less of a budget, and I can't tell why Spider-Man 2 would cost that much more to make.

No wonder Ubisoft is hurting, why would anyone make a triple-A game these days at all?

These big publishers better learn how to make double-A games and scale things down.
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Salaries in the US increased massively post Covid.
 
More from Tom Henderson:

Although I wasn't given the figure on what Ubisoft anticipated Outlaws to sell within its first month, the game has just surpassed 1 million units sold at the time of writing. Its performance has seemingly caused alarm bells to ring at HQ, which not only led to the approval of Assassin's Creed Shadows being delayed to Q1 2025 but to finally putting games back on Steam (a request that every Ubisoft team has been pushing for years).
Click to expand...

insider-gaming.com

EXCLUSIVE - Context Around the Assassin's Creed Shadows Delay

Exclusive context around the recent delay announcement of Assassin's Creed Shadows which will now launch February 14, 2025.
insider-gaming.com insider-gaming.com
 
That’s, uh… wow. I’m having a legitimately hard time imagining this. Wondering if a wire was crossed somewhere on the sourcing front. Maybe it’s like 1.5m. But 1m is distinctly disastrous!
 
Someone like Matt Piscatella will have to step in to clarify things, that number is so bad I genuinely think Ubisoft will have to release a statement to avoid another batch of bad press.
 
Imagine if the budget of this game instead was like Breath of the wild, which Miyamoto stated only needed to sell 3 million copies to make a profit for Nintendo.
 
Danny said:
Imagine if the budget of this game instead was like Breath of the wild, which Miyamoto stated only needed to sell 3 million copies to make a profit for Nintendo.
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The number that BotW supposedly needed to break even was 2M and iirc that was a mistranslation and not what he said.
 
Danny said:
Imagine if the budget of this game instead was like Breath of the wild, which Miyamoto stated only needed to sell 3 million copies to make a profit for Nintendo.
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Star Wars Outlaws selling 3M is still a huge underperformance even with a BOTW-sized budget (which was not small - that Miyamoto quote has been mistranslated for nearly a decade and it's a shame that people still repeat it today).
 
Danny said:
Imagine if the budget of this game instead was like Breath of the wild, which Miyamoto stated only needed to sell 3 million copies to make a profit for Nintendo.
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The only real thing we know about BOTW is that it was made by a 300-person team over 4 years.

And as people noted, that quote from Miyamoto was completely different, he said that Nintendo wants their games to sell over 2 million to make things profitable as a whole. People then took that and made it seem like BOTW needed to sell over 2 million to make money, which is not what he said.

Nintendo will splurge on 3D Zelda and 3D Mario because they are the juggernauts of their company, but I think it's gonna take a lot for Nintendo to spend over 100 million on a game.
 
Oof, no wonder Ubisoft went into panic mode shortly thereafter, I imagine they lost a tons of money on this.
Let's hope the relaunch on Steam will turn the tide.
 
Gimmick said:
The only real thing we know about BOTW is that it was made by a 300-person team over 4 years.

And as people noted, that quote from Miyamoto was completely different, he said that Nintendo wants their games to sell over 2 million to make things profitable as a whole. People then took that and made it seem like BOTW needed to sell over 2 million to make money, which is not what he said.

Nintendo will splurge on 3D Zelda and 3D Mario because they are the juggernauts of their company, but I think it's gonna take a lot for Nintendo to spend over 100 million on a game.
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To be fair to western companies, i don't think Japanese games will ever have the same huge budgets due to the massive wage difference. Japanese games today are probably more cheap than ever to make given that these companies gets lots of dollars while paying their developers in yen.
 
Wehttam said:
Someone like Matt Piscatella will have to step in to clarify things, that number is so bad I genuinely think Ubisoft will have to release a statement to avoid another batch of bad press.
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Mat wouldn't have the vision on global sales. Sadly, to get a complete view you either need internal Ubisoft figures (and their access has been limited within the company because of Henderson's leaks) or being member of the NPD Digital Leading Panel and be a subscriber of GSD.

This limits greatly the amount of people capable of corroborating this report.
Danny said:
Imagine if the budget of this game instead was like Breath of the wild, which Miyamoto stated only needed to sell 3 million copies to make a profit for Nintendo.
Click to expand...
If you sourced better your claims, you would realize that Miyamoto never said that.
Danny said:
To be fair to western companies, i don't think Japanese games will ever have the same huge budgets due to the massive wage difference. Japanese games today are probably more cheap than ever to make given that these companies gets lots of dollars while paying their developers in yen.
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No, they are not, the weaker yen doesn't compensate the huge increase in manpower over the past decades.

Final Fantasy VII was considered the most expensive game of its time and had a production budget of $45M.

finalfantasy.fandom.com

Final Fantasy VII development

Final Fantasy VII is the seventh installment in the Final Fantasy series, released in 1997 by Square Co., Ltd., and the company's biggest undertaking in game development at the time. It is directed by Yoshinori Kitase, written by Kitase and Kazushige Nojima, and produced by the series' creator...
finalfantasy.fandom.com finalfantasy.fandom.com

The newer version are at least twice as expensive nowadays.
 
Lelouch0612 said:
Mat wouldn't have the vision on global sales. Sadly, to get a complete view you either need internal Ubisoft figures (and their access has been limited within the company because of Henderson's leaks) or being member of the NPD Digital Leading Panel and be a subscriber of GSD.

This limits greatly the amount of people capable of corroborating this report.

If you sourced better your claims, you would realize that Miyamoto never said that.

No, they are not, the weaker yen doesn't compensate the huge increase in manpower over the past decades.

Final Fantasy VII was considered the most expensive game of its time and had a production budget of $45M.

finalfantasy.fandom.com

Final Fantasy VII development

Final Fantasy VII is the seventh installment in the Final Fantasy series, released in 1997 by Square Co., Ltd., and the company's biggest undertaking in game development at the time. It is directed by Yoshinori Kitase, written by Kitase and Kazushige Nojima, and produced by the series' creator...
finalfantasy.fandom.com finalfantasy.fandom.com

The newer version are at least twice as expensive nowadays.
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The weak yen really does make Japanese games cheaper to make today than 10 years ago, they get like 80% of their revenue from dollars/euros and pay in yen.
 
SkyerIst said:
Tom Henderson is one of the most respected insiders in the industry with near-perfect record. Comparing him with random "insiders" is ridiculous.
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Just because someone has a great track record with one type of leak (in this case PlayStation hardware) doesn't mean they can't be inaccurate with other types of leaks. Tom is a "random insider" when it comes to Ubisoft sales figures. It's very likely he could have an unreliable source that rounded down Star Wars Outlaws figures or was excessively vague about their performance, or he heard a figure off-hand from being part of a leak group on Discord and didn't directly corroborate it.

Like Tom might have heard "Yeah Star Wars Outlaws is bombing dude, 1 million is way below what management expected" and spins that into "Star Wars Outlaws has only sold 1 million copies since launch" when that 1 million could very well have represented a shorter post-launch period than a month.

People have a tendency to implicitly trust "leaks" when it fits their narrative without properly contextualizing them first. We see it all the time with Switch 2 lately as well.
 
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Aquamarine said:
Just because someone has a great track record with one type of leak (in this case PlayStation hardware) doesn't mean they can't be inaccurate with other types of leaks. Tom is a "random insider" when it comes to Ubisoft. It's very likely he could have an unreliable source that rounded down Star Wars Outlaws figures or was excessively vague about their performance, or he heard a figure off-hand from being part of a leak group on Discord and didn't directly corroborate it.

Like Tom might have heard "Yeah Star Wars Outlaws is bombing dude, 1 million is way below what management expected" and spins that into "Star Wars Outlaws has only sold 1 million copies since launch" when that 1 million could very well have represented a shorter post-launch period than a month.

People have a tendency to implicitly trust "leaks" when it fits their narrative without properly contextualizing them first. We see it all the time with Switch 2 lately as well.
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derby_440 said:
Maybe its 1.5m but end result is still disaster.
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He wrote this:
SkyerIst said:
More from Tom Henderson:

"Although I wasn't given the figure on what Ubisoft anticipated Outlaws to sell within its first month, the game has just surpassed 1 million units sold at the time of writing. Its performance has seemingly caused alarm bells to ring at HQ, which not only led to the approval of Assassin's Creed Shadows being delayed to Q1 2025 but to finally putting games back on Steam (a request that every Ubisoft team has been pushing for years)."

insider-gaming.com

EXCLUSIVE - Context Around the Assassin's Creed Shadows Delay

Exclusive context around the recent delay announcement of Assassin's Creed Shadows which will now launch February 14, 2025.
insider-gaming.com insider-gaming.com
Click to expand...
So considering he's being very clear about when the game crossed 1M, unless his source is 100% wrong or extremely poorly worded, it's not at 1.5M yet.
 
There is no better outside source for Ubisoft than Tom Henderson. He has consistently reported insider information, from sales targets, milestones, dev issues and future titles for years now and they have largely lined up.

That being said, even I can't believe how low 1M is.
From review tracking, and being a bit generous, I reckoned it did 2-2.5M. Taking the reviews at a usual value, does lead to 1-1.5M:

700-800K PS
200K XBS

However, the title must have really cratered on PC. PC is ~20% of Ubi's revenue, so 1M on console on avg you'd say 250K PC. Explains their urgency for a Steam release.

Either way, we will find out when NPD's release through ranking.

We know its a financial disaster, Ubi decreased revenue projections by $150M and FY profit has $400M wiped out. Some of that is AC delay, even so I think this game is looking at $100-200M loss. Budget is likely $200M+
 
Awful result.
Not surprising though; folks seem to be tiring of Ubisoft's formula which hasn't changed in two generations, and Star Wars itself is not as beloved as it used to be.
 
Either this game was incredibly frontloaded or all the sales pr early on were literal lies.
 
Game has looked bad since first reveal. I think they could fix it but it will be quite a lift.

The problems:

- Gunplay looks stiff and unsatisfying
- Stealth is broken and forced
- Graphics are bland and washed out
- Lack of environmental interactivity
- Game lacks a certain grit for a game called "Outlaws" - everything is sterilized
- Not being able to customize your character
 
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