A new report claims that Star Wars Outlaws sales are 55% lower than sales of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor in the United Kingdom.
A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
According to Nintendo Life, Star Wars Outlaws topped the sales charts in the United Kingdom besting Hogwarts Legacy, Elden Ring, Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, and EA Sports FC 24.
However, Games Industry Head Christopher Dring reported “launch sales are 55% lower than what Star Wars Jedi: Survivor did.” He also noted it “was 15% bigger than Ubisoft Massive’s last game, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.”
Christopher Dring on X
In a follow-up he added, “So it turns out there may be some missing data from the physical numbers, so it’s worth waiting for the end of the week when the digital stats are in. Which is just true generally.”
Christopher Dring on X
However, other data points indicate that Star Wars Outlaws might not be selling that well at all. True Trophies reported in its Most Popular PS5 and PS4 Games chart, which ended the week of September 1st that Star Wars Outlaws placed 25th on the chart in its first week release.
The outlet’s Kes Eylers-Stephenson shared, “#25 is just below the middle of the chart and it sits behind pretty much every major and middling live service game in terms of popularity right now. Normally, these are the early 20s spots where PS Plus’ indie games debut — not new AAA open-world games.”
For comparison it performed worse than games such as Red Dead Redemption 2, Helldivers 2, Elden Ring, Ubisoft’s own Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, and Black Myth: Wukong.
A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
On top of all of this, Side Scrollers Podcast owner and host Craig Skistimas aka Stuttering Craig shared that a source inside a major box store retailer informed him that there had only been 41 pre-orders for Star Wars Outlaws in a major metropolitan area where 27 locations of the chain are located.
He wrote on X at the end of August, “I have an insider who works for high traffic game stores in one of the most populated places in the US. They have 27 stores in that area and there have been a total of 41 preorders for Star Wars Outlaws. FORTY ONE. There is NO hype for this game.”
I have an insider who works for high traffic game stores in one of the most populated places in the US.
They have 27 stores in that area and there have been a total of 41 preorders for #StarWarsOutlaws. FORTY ONE.
There is NO hype for this game. https://t.co/XUbliNC2l4
— Stuttering Craig (Official) (@StutteringCraig) August 27, 2024
Following the announcement that Firewalk Studios’ Concord was getting shut down less than two weeks after its release, Skistimas shared some color regarding pre-order sales for Concord and how they compare to Star Wars Outlaws.
He wrote, “Re: Concord My insider told me in June, July & August Concord had only 231 preorders company wide. 91 of them were cancelled BEFORE the shutdown of the game. They sold 140 copies of Concord in over 900 stores. I want to reiterate: that is roughly 1 copy for every 6 stores.”
Re: Concord
My insider told me in June, July & August Concord had only 231 preorders company wide. 91 of them were cancelled BEFORE the shutdown of the game.
They sold 140 copies of Concord in over 900 stores.
I want to reiterate: that is roughly 1 copy for every 6 stores. https://t.co/9AKVjtJ9H4
— Stuttering Craig (Official) (@StutteringCraig) September 3, 2024
Furthermore, Twitch streaming data from Twitch Tracker appears to show a significant decline in interest in the game just a week after its release. The game’s peak average viewership occurred during the game’s three-day early access if you pre-ordered the Gold or Ultimate editions or subscribed to Ubisoft Plus. It hit an average viewership of 45,551 viewers on August 27th. It has since been in decline. On September 2nd, the average viewership was down to 6,668 viewers.
As for peak viewership it hit a peak of 117,554 on August 26th, but like average viewership has declined since then. Most recently it’s peak viewership on September 2nd was 10,977.
Star Wars Outlaws streaming data via Twitch Tracker
For comparison, Black Myth: Wukong, which was 4th on True Trophies Most Popular PlayStation Games list, had an average peak viewership of 241,844 on August 21st. As of September 2nd the game was still clocking an average of 37,262 viewers.
Looking at peak data, the game hit peak viewership of 482,508 viewers on August 20th. On September 2nd it had peak viewership of 80,021 viewers.
Furthermore, over 4x the amount of channels streamed Black Myth: Wukong compared to Star Wars Outlaws. TwitchTracker reports Black Myth: Wukong hit a peak of 5,371 channels on August 19th while Star Wars Outlaws only hit a peak of 1,221.
Black Myth: Wukong streaming data via Twitch Tracker
This data appears to reflect investor concerns regarding Star Wars Outlaws. Barclays’ Nick Dempsey questioned Ubisoft’s low Q2 earnings prediction of just €500 million during the company’s Q1 FY2024 Sales report.
He asked, “When I look at the guidance for Q2 and if I assume something similar for back catalog in Q2 as Q1 kind of getting to €200 to €230 million, that sort of range. For the new release Star Wars Outlaws, when I look at the $70 price and then assuming what you might get from it, I’m getting to around 5 million units, something in that sort of bracket. First of all, where could I be going wrong with that thinking? Secondly, are you just being pretty conservative in your guidance because I guess given the interest in that game we might have thought it would be more than 5 million units?”
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot responded, “We can’t comment on the very numbers you are quoting. But what we have factored in is a strong launch for Star Wars Outlaws that reflects the fact that it is among the most awaited games of the industry this year and a really strong, positive community sentiment. And also, the fact, that we are coming with the biggest marketing campaign ever, so far, for [an] Ubisoft game. So that’s what we’ve been factoring in the second quarter.”
A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
Following the release of Star Wars Outlaws, the market has reacted poorly to Ubisoft. The company’s stock has fallen over 10% in the past 5 days to a low of 15.50
A screenshot of Ubisoft’s stock price via Yahoo! Finance
What do you make of these early sales reports and player counts for Star Wars Outlaws?
