Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello says that Medal of Honor sales “exceeded our plan and expectations” and that the game is very likely to become a franchise once again.
Boy, it seems like only yesterday that EA Vice President Patrick Soderlund said that the Medal of Honor reboot “didn’t meet our quality expectations.” Oh wait, that was yesterday. “In order to be successful in that space, we’re going to have to have a game that is really, really strong,” he said.
Or maybe not. Missed expectations notwithstanding, Riccitiello made it clear during a call to investors that Medal of Honor “is absolutely (a) clear success.”
EA’s Greg Goodrich said back in September that Medal of Honor would need to move a minimum of three million copies or a sequel would be off the table, but Riccitiello said future titles were likely even though the game has only sold two million copies to date and, with Call of Duty: Black Ops just a few days away, probably won’t climb much higher. “Consumer feedback has been strong to suggest that we’ve got a franchise now, once again, that we could successfully and effectively sequel in the future,” he said.
“The game has exceeded our plan and expectations sell-through and sell-in, and those expectations were, they went up as they went from planned to forecast and as we updated our forecast through for the year,” he continued. “So in every possible gate of opportunity to increase the forecast we did, and then we exceeded those forecast based on strong selling numbers. So it is absolutely clear success as a business for us.”
Riccitiello obviously isn’t going to come down too hard on one of his company’s supposed flagship titles during a conference call with investors, but at the same time I don’t think it’s likely that he’d gush so much about sequelizing the game if there wasn’t at least a decent chance of it happening. The lesson? Sales are what count at the end of the day and sometimes, it seems, “good enough” really is good enough.
Source: CVG
