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During a recent general meeting at Ubisoft, CEO Yves Guillemot was asked about Star Wars Outlaws failing to meet sales expectations. The first thing Guillemot says is that he thinks the Star Wars brand itself is to blame.
In the meeting, Guillemot was asked by a shareholder, "What have you learned from the failure [of Star Wars Outlaws] in terms of sales? Have you learnt anything new in terms of pricing, in terms of marketing?"
"We didn't reach our sales targets," Guillemot replies. The company previously stated sales had been lower than hoped for. "The game suffered from a number of items. First, it suffered from the fact that it was released at a time when the brand that it belonged to was in a bit of choppy waters."
Star Wars Outlaws launched August 27, 2024. That same year, Tales of the Empire, The Acolyte, and Skeleton Crew TV shows were launched. Viewership was down, and the Acolyte got cancelled, which is terrible for fans such as myself who wanted to see more of Manny Jacinto's arms.
Guillemot also acknowledges that the game itself wasn't perfect, however. "The game had a few items that still needed to be polished," he admits. "They were polished and debugged in the early weeks after release, but it did affect sales volumes.
"We did heavily improve the game by troubleshooting and debugging. When it will be released on upcoming consoles such as the Switch 2 it will have a new version of the game. Improvements on the game are not finished."
Could Star Wars Outlaws launch on the Switch 2 give it a second chance? Devs were "pushing a lot" of fixes right after the game launched, and the lack of polish is actually what led to delaying Assassin's Creed Shadows so that it wouldn't launch in a similarly buggy state. So, Ubisoft has learned a valuable lesson, it seems.
If you want more of the galaxy that's far, far away, check out our list of the best Star Wars games.
