GameStop says Halo 5, Assassin’s Creed and Star Wars fell short of expectations

Retailer GameStop has said that a trio of this quarter’s big releases sold fewer units than it had anticipated.

CEO Tony Bartel told investors, as per Seeking Alpha‘s transcription, that sales of Halo 5, Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate and Star Wars: Battlefront at GameStop fell short of our expectations”.

Of Star Wars, Bartel added: We had high expectations that diminished somewhat as it got closer, and then it failed to hit those lowered expectations.”

Call of Duty: Black Ops III and Fallout 4, meanwhile, met our initial expectation”.

The company yesterday reported a drop in income for its last quarter.

GameStop execs also commented on speculation that digital sales of Halo 5 may be higher than average for a full-price console title. Some analysts had even suggested that as many as 50 per cent of the game’s sales may have been non-physical.

I think that would be very similar to what we’ve heard in the other titles,” chief financial officer Robert Lloyd said, agreeing with a range in the region of between 20 per cent and 25 per cent.

Added Bartel: Let me reiterate that we constantly talk with platform holders and with publishers, and we have a very good read and understanding of all titles that launched.

We can’t share that specific information. Here is what I would say though: In the past, we know that certain publishers and platform holders have reported sell-in and some have even reported sell-in at retail. I’m not saying that that’s happened in this case, but that has happened in the past. And so I think I would definitely go back and talk to Microsoft about their announcement, as they are the only ones who can comment on that.

Second, they definitely understand exactly what their digital percentage was. They know exactly what they sold and they know exactly what was sold digitally. So again, I would encourage you to go back and ask Microsoft to disclose that number.

But again, we talk with platform holders and publishers constantly. We have again this quarter. And we are in full understanding and in full belief that there is no game that was launched this quarter that was materially above a normal digital per cent at launch.”