Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:EA) recently announced the launch of its much awaited sports genre game, FIFA Soccer 13, in North America on September 25, and the launch in the rest of the world is slated for September 28. [1] In addition to exciting features such as enhanced dribbling, realistic control and a deeper career mode, FIFA 13 will support PlayStation Move and Kinect controllers, unlike its other FIFA series predecessors.
While much has been talked about the technical features of the game, we are more interested to see the impact that FIFA 13 can have on Electronic Arts. We believe with the exciting features and the scale of pre-orders to date, FIFA 13 could well be one of the highest selling franchise game for Electronic Arts. EA competes with other game developers like Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ:ATVI), Take-Two Interactive Software (NASDAQ:TTWO) and casual gaming mainstays such as Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA), Playdom etc.
Check out our complete analysis of Electronic Arts
FIFA 13′s initial reception indicates that it can surpass FIFA 12′s success
FIFA 12 was one of the most successful FIFA franchise games from Electronic Arts. Riding on the back of massive improvement in gameplay features such as impact engine, tactical defending and precision dribbling , FIFA 12 went on to clock in excess of 12 million sales across platforms. [2]
The initial results for FIFA 13 have been amazing with over 1 million worldwide pre-orders. Additionally, the game’s demo, launched last week on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network, has been downloaded 4.6 million times, indicating the high anticipation of the game before its release. The game has garnered high ratings from most of the gaming critics with 32 review scores of 90 out of 100 or higher. Assuming that FIFA 13 will surpass the records created by FIFA 12, which we believe it can, a 5% increase in EA’s Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo console sales would imply upside to our price estimate.
We expect the average pricing for FIFA 13 to be higher than FIFA 12 as more number of FIFA 13 will be played on seventh and eighth generational consoles, which have higher priced games due to increased technical complexities involved in the game development.
We have a $16.63 price estimate for Electronics Arts, which is roughly 30% ahead of its current market price.
Understand How a Company’s Products Impact its Stock Price at Trefis
Notes:- EA launch FIFA Soccer 13, Source: Electronic Arts IR, September 25th [↩]
- FIFA 12 sales numbers, Source: VG Chartz [↩]
