Colour us shocked! The Wall Street Journal is reporting that, after a controversial launch last November, EA's Star Wars Battlefront II missed its lofty sales expectations.
The loot box infested FPS sold around 9 million copies, short of EA's 10 million copy expectation. While EA does expect the game to push another 1-1.5 million copies before the end of the fiscal year, it does put the sequel well behind the pace set by its predecessor, which sold well over 14 million copies during its first quarter sales.
Speaking of loot boxes, EA finance chief Blake Jorgensen says that they're still on track to return at a point down the road. "We'll do it when we think it's ready", Jorgensen said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal. This news comes after the now infamous controversy their lootbox system caused and called into question in several countries whether or not loot box systems could be classified as gambling.
For its part, DICE does seem to still be committed to making updates to the title, with changes to the progression system being made shortly after launch and with more new changes coming in March, players will have things to look forward to, at the very least.
Only time will tell how this affects EA's future plans for the Star Wars Battlefront series going forward, but we're willing to bet they're taking a good, long look at how they got to the disasterous point they reached last fall.