Ubisoft’s share price has taken a significant hit following the release of its highly anticipated Star Wars Outlaws game.
The open-world Star Wars title, developed by Massive Entertainment, launched on August 27th, 2024, and since then, Ubisoft’s share price has fallen by an alarming 12.6%, reaching a near 10-year low of 15.22 euros.
As of the time of writing, Ubisoft’s market value stands at a modest 1.99 billion euros.
What are the Key Factors Affecting the Ubisoft’s Market Price?
1) Missed Sales Expectations: Ubisoft did not announce a public sales target for Star Wars Outlaws, but the market results indicate that the game has struggled since the beginning. According to Reuters, JP Morgan analyst Daniel Kerven stated that the game has “struggled to meet sales expectations despite positive critical reviews.”
2) Physical Launch Sales Decline: The game’s physical launch sales in the UK were reported to be 55% lower than those of last year’s Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, according to GfK data.
3) Analyst Revisions: The JP Morgan analyst has lowered his sales expectations for the game from 7.5 million to 5.5 million through March 2025, citing the game’s disappointing performance.
4) High Development Costs: Analysts suggest that the game’s disappointing performance is partly due to high development costs, which were 30% above those for Assassin’s Creed Mirage.
5) Player Reaction: The game’s Metacritic score averages 76, indicating a generally favorable critical reception. However, the user score of 4.9 signals an unfavorable reception from players.
6) Other Data: Early indicators, such as Twitch viewership data, suggest that Outlaws is underperforming compared to Ubisoft’s other release, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, by about 15%.
In addition to the underperformance of Star Wars Outlaws, Ubisoft’s stock has also been affected by the struggles of its free-to-play Call of Duty rival, Xdefiant. According to Midcap Partners (via Reuters), the game has seen a substantial decline in player engagement, with peak concurrent players falling to around 20,000, further contributing to the drop in Ubisoft’s stock, which has lost over 30% since the start of the year.
The recent setbacks come at a critical time for Ubisoft, which has faced negative cash flows over the past four years due to game cancellations and delays. As a result, the company’s shares have tumbled from an all-time high of 85 euros in January 2021 to just 15 euros now, an 82% drop.
What’s Next for Ubisoft?
Despite these setbacks, Ubisoft is hopeful for its next major release Assassin’s Creed Shadows, a feudal-Japan-themed entry in the popular Assassin’s Creed franchise, set to launch on November 15.
The company is expected to report its second-quarter earnings sometime in October, where we may see more details on the sales or revenue of both Star Wars Outlaws and Xdefiant.
So stay tuned! For more information subscribe to Gaming Foodle.
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