UPDATED 12:00 EDT / OCTOBER 30 2015

NEWS

EA is betting heavily on the success of Star Wars Battlefront, raises 2016 outlook

Simply having the Star Wars name is already enough to guarantee at least a few sales for a game, especially this year with the first new Star Wars film in more than a decade releasing in December, but Electronic Arts Inc. is betting that its upcoming team shooter, Star Wars Battlefront, will do more than bank on a famous title.

In its recent Q2 earnings call, EA predicted that Battlefront will sell over 13 million units by the end of its fiscal year in March 2016, and company CEO Andrew Wilson explained that the publisher expects the game to capture two key audiences that aren’t normally known for snapping up every new release.

“What we have seen is that Star Wars is bringing in two groups that are very important groups to us,” Wilson said (via GamesIndustry.biz). “One are gamers that have lapsed, traditionally who have been big gamers in the past and maybe haven’t played for a while, and it’s certainly been a catalyst for those people to come back into the gaming universe as it relates to console. And two, onboarding a new younger age demographic.”

“Now if Han Solo was here, we’d say great but, ‘Don’t get cocky, kid’ ” added COO Peter Moore. “Our ability to be able to deliver against this is solid and the preorders are excellent, so you’ve heard from both Blake [Jorgensen, CFO] and Andrew. We feel very good about 13 million units.”

Star Wars Battlefront will release on November 17 and will be available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

Based on the expected success of titles like Star Wars Battlefront and EA’s stronger than expected Q2 performance, the publisher has raised its full-year outlook to $45 billion, an increase of $50 million.

Unfortunately, not all of the news from EA this week has been good. The publisher also revealed that Mirror’s Edge Catalyst had been delayed until May 24, 2016, a delay of roughly three months.

Image courtesy of  Electronic Arts Inc

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