EA's Facebreaker TKO'd, Sells Just 52k

October 17, 2008 | By: James Brightman

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Facebreaker had a rough go of it in its first month on sale in the U.S. A Wii version is still scheduled for release, but so far the new IP has been poorly received.

The NPD Group has confirmed that EA's Facebreaker sold just 52,000 units in September across the Xbox 360 and PS3 combined. A Wii version called FaceBreaker K.O. Party is expected to launch in November.

Facebreaker's market performance was labeled "disappointing" by UBS analyst Ben Schachter. We agree. The game was supposed to represent what EA Sports could do with an all-new IP under its Freestyle brand. EA even went the extra step of putting EA Sports boss Peter Moore in the game. Somehow the game's over-the-top characters and arcade gameplay didn't click with consumers.

Ironically, EA Sports earlier this week issued a statement to boast about its improving Metacritic scores, but Facebreaker has an average score of 54 on Metacritic.

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter told us that he had low expectations for the game from the start. He doesn't "consider it sports, any more than Carnival Games Mini Golf is sports." Pachter added that this misstep won't really matter: "It's really an irrelevant title. Mercenaries, Spore and Warhammer all exceeded expectations, and EA is a portfolio of titles. They got some right, and they got some wrong. Dead Space is kicking butt, so it's hard to criticize them for underperformance from their smallest game."

We asked EA Sports to comment on the game's sales, but we've yet to receive a response. Update: A spokesperson has told us that EA doesn't comment on individual title performance outside of quarterly earnings calls.

Reader Comments (2)

micoft at 2:46 pm on October 26th 2008

This wasn't a bad game. What was bad about it was the price! This was never in the 39.99-49.99 range and should have hit the market at 19.99. They would have sold many more copies. Better yet make it XBLA, PSN or Wiiware. This was a nice little arcade game at a AAA title price. Nobody to blame but EA.

crowdcontrol74 at 12:26 pm on October 20th 2008

This game didn't really have a market. After coming up with realistic sports simulations, I don't think anyone was ready or wanted a game like this. Putting it on EA "Freestyle" couldn't hide this fact.