While I actually quite enjoyed it, the rest of the world reacted with indifference to the release of Star Wars: Outlaws. The critical response was decent and there was at least some interest before release, but once it was released, discussion quickly cooled off and people lost interest. Putting Star Wars in a box doesn’t seem to draw crowds anymore.
That idea is supported by a new report from Insider Gaming’s brilliant Grant Taylor-Hill. According to Grant, who had to rattle off Sam Fisher’s nonsense to get into Ubisoft HQ, the game sold only a million copies in its first month of release.
Grant went on to say that he couldn’t confirm exactly what sales figures Ubisoft is expecting, but I think it’s safe to say they’re thinking a little higher than a million units.
But it does put Ubisoft’s recent comments and decisions into some perspective. Last week, the company announced that it was delaying Assassin’s Creed: Shadows because it wanted to make changes based on the feedback it received for Star Wars: Outlaws. The company also confirmed that Outlaws’ sales were ‘softer than expected’.
For some context, Assassin’s Creed: Mirage hit 5 million players in its first month despite being a much smaller game than the average Assassin’s Creed entry. Maybe I’m being too generous, but I think Ubisoft figured the Star Wars license alone would get it somewhat close to Mirage’s numbers.
The real problem Ubisoft faces with low sales is that Outlaws is a licensed game. That means Ubisoft will have to pay a significant portion of its profits to Disney. It’s impossible to know the exact details of the deal, but thanks to leaks, we know that Insomniac’s deal with Disney for Spider-Man games means the House of the Mouse will receive a significant amount of cash. Plus, for every copy of Star Wars: Outlaws sold on PlayStation or Xbox, Ubisoft gets an additional 30% of the profits. The Epic store costs a lot less, but we know sales won’t be quite as high since Ubisoft has announced that its games will be releasing on Steam on Day 1 going forward.
