The market isn’t optimistic about Ubisoft, whose shares have been falling for two days in a row. The French company has reached its lowest level in almost a decade.
Star Wars Outlaws
Ubisoft shares were down 5.1% on Monday and continued to fall on September 3, Reuters reported. Overall, the stock has fallen over 11% over the last five days.
At the time of writing, Ubisoft shares are trading at €15.50, their lowest level since 2015. It is worth noting that the company was on the rise at the time, while its value has been steadily declining for a while now. The stock has plunged around 34% since the start of 2024.
The main reason for such a decline is the launch of Star Wars Outlaws, with J.P. Morgan analyst Daniel Kerven saying that the game “has struggled to meet our sales expectations despite positive critical reviews.” He also lowered his sales expectations for Outlaws by from 7.5 million to 5.5 million units until the end of the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2025.
Launched on August 30, Star Wars Outlaws received an average score on Metacritic of 75-77/100 depending on the platform. GamesIndustry.biz head Christopher Dring noted that the game’s launch physical sales in the UK are 55% lower than Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, but 15% higher than Massive’s previous title, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. However, GfK has yet to release data on digital copies.
According to Midcap Partners analyst Charles-Louis Planade, another factor that led to Ubisoft’s stock price falling is the declining player interest in XDefiant. Despite its successful launch with over 11 million unique players, the free-to-play shooter has reportedly been struggling to retain the audience. Last week, several sources told Tom Henderson that XDefiant barely reaches 20k peak concurrent players across all platforms, with Ubisoft bosses pressuring the team to improve the metrics with the upcoming Season 3.