Network now...NEWS
Wall-E a Sales Straggler
Disney Pixar's Wall-E drummed up box office success and big critical acclaim, but the THQ-published game has been struggling at retail.
Initial sell-through for the game, released in the U.S. in late June, has been 114,000 units, according to an investor note from analyst firm Signal Hill. That figure is flat year-on-year with the Ratatouille game, another title based on a Disney Pixar flick.
"While Wall-E initially seemed well positioned given the easy comp vs Ratatouille and strong box office and critical acclaim for the movie, thus far it does not seem so promising for the videogame," said Signal Hill analyst Tom Greenwald.
"...The game is already being discounted across all platforms at retailers such as Gamestop."
Prior to the Wall-E game's release, analysts and THQ execs were optimistic that the game would sell better than Ratatouille, as some believed a robot-based game would be more appealing than a rat-based game.
But the Wall-E game, a key title in THQ's lineup, has reviewed poorly and hasn't gained traction with consumers.
Analyst Arvind Bhatia with Sterne Agee said in a separate note, "[THQ's] full year guidance of $0.95-$1.05 may be at risk due to the initial performance of Wall-E."
However, Michael Pachter with Wedbush Morgan says not all hope is lost for Wall-E success.
"We expect Wall-E sales to skew heavily toward the holiday quarter as well, and believe that the game will sell through better than its predecessor, Ratatouille."
He estimates Wall-E sell-through of 4.5 million units, a 10 percent increase over Ratatouille. "...Recent investor concerns about the game’s first week sales being 'disappointing' are misguided," Pachter added.
THQ has yet to match the success of the Disney Pixar game tie-in Cars, which was the second-best-selling game of 2007 in North America.
actually, why the hell does EVERY cg animated movie (no matter how great) need a blasted game tie-in anyway? besides the obvious cash-in reasoning, it's hard to justify shipping a generally fair to poor quality game within a film's release window unless you advertise it (maybe before the movie, duh?). then again, we are sort of in a recession these days, so perhaps a huge amount of folks who'd automatically drop full retail price on a licensed game can only afford the tickets to see the movie and no game (unless it's a rental).
it WOULD be nice to see licensed games like this retail for no more than $25, but i'd be lying if i thought that day would be approaching anytime soon...
then again, with DVD releases coming so quickly, why not move to doing licensed games to release with the DVD versions, perhaps bundled together in some markets?
there's been little advertising for the movie (i can't recall seeing more than one commercial on TV) and zero advertising for the game. this not only explains why the game is such a poor seller but also why the movie itself has been a box office failure, earning only $15mil post-budget. -- shame too, as i found it quite charming --
lesson here is advertising. there wasn't enough and what little there was obviously wasn't good enough.
Yes, I agree. As Pixar moves upmarket with more sophisticated films, they lose some of their mass market appeal. If you compare Finding Nemo and Wall-E, this becomes obvious.
What also doesn't help is the fact that Disney still relies on sub-par games for their franchises. That's another big reason for Wall-E's disappointing sales numbers.