EA: Boom Blox Sales Meet Expectations

EA CEO John Riccitiello recently discussed sales of the company's Spielberg-directed Wii-exclusive, Boom Blox.

The game's initial sales, 60,000 in the United States, have been brought up recently as fairly poor for a title backed by the legendary film producer. It ranked 25th on the all-formats sales chart, 9th in the Wii selection and has had fairly strong scores across the board - including 9/10 on Cubed³.

According to GamesIndustry.biz, Riccitiello commented on the differences between core franchises and the more casual selection like Boom Blox - "To be honest, I think everything in casual makes us all challenge our assumptions." He reveals that the approach with core games is to at least market for at least 5 months, driving players to retail on day one. The casual market on the other hand has a "much flatter, much longer curve and one with which, frankly, EA has relatively little experience in." Casual gamers are � casual � and the relaxed approach to buying new software may not force players to buy on day one, perhaps taking more care into what games make the cut.

Right now, [Boom Blox] has met our expectations internally based on the model that was put forward by Kathy [Vrabeck] and her team. It has continued to sell well - it did break into the Top Ten for the Wii.

A title like this one...Can it do several hundred thousand or a million or more units? Sure, it just has to keep selling.

He concludes that the company aren't ready to add Boom Blox to their list of failed titles, and still have hopes for the title doing well at retail.