- Staff
- #31
The best figures I can find put total NFL 17 sales (as of April) at around 5m - let's say 7m including digital sales, to be a little generous (or you can be more generous, if you like). According to Forbes (SOURCE), last year's FIFA sales almost hit that after a single month.Is it because NHL and NFL sells more?
(Quick note: FIFA 17 sales were 18% up in the first week - SOURCE - so from about 4.8m to 5.5m. IN THE FIRST WEEK!)
FIFA is their best-selling franchise by far. Even if you roll together NFL and NHL sales, FIFA outsells them, because handegg and hockey are only guaranteed sales in the US. Outside of America, FIFA sells absolute truckloads wherever it's released. It rakes money in, especially when you include the Ultimate Team purchases (which the other games now have as well, but a much larger, and arguably younger audience equals much more $$$).
The fact that NFL and NHL have so many more changes and features is because of the opposite of what you're saying (in my opinion) - it's because the teams in charge of those games are being tasked with the same thing every year... "Make this game sell as well as FIFA".
(Which it never will, and the management knows that - but every business wants more money, doesn't it.)
They know that they can put the minimum investment into FIFA and get back an absolute truckload of money, and for as long as PES is out of the running, from a business perspective, it 100% makes sense to do that.
The one "safe" change they could make that would, if anything, increase sales, would be to make the game prettier. And what did they do for FIFA 17? They introduced Frostbite, unexpectedly at the expense of the gameplay, which is now plagued with response issues and glitches (IMO).
What happened? It broke sales records (see the note below the chart).
Because it was prettier...
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