The Division 2 Sales Fail to Meet Ubisoft’s Expectations

Tom Clancy’s The Division was one of the biggest releases of 2016, but it also had an insane amount of hype going into release. There wasn’t nearly as much hype for its sequel, which released back in March. And thus it should come as no surprise that the looter-shooter did not meet Ubisoft’s sales expectations, at least on console. Confirmation of the game coming in lighter than Ubisoft expected came during the French company’s latest earnings call where it talked about the game and its performance.

“The Division 2 ended up short of our ambitious expectations on console. We believe this was due in large part to a more competitive market than expected,” said chief financial boss Frederick Dugue.”

As for who these competitors could be, who knows. Presumably he’s referring to EA’s Apex Legends, which was still hot at the moment, and single-player releases like Devil May Cry V and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, which released around the looter-shooter. That said, beyond Apex Legends, there wasn’t really anything in Q1 that should have a huge impact on The Division 2’s sales.

Meanwhile, on PC, the game performed in-line with its predecessor, and actually did very well on Ubisoft’s launcher Uplay, which the company was naturally very pleased with.

Looking ahead, the aforementioned Dugue suspects the game will healthily grow through robust support and content drops. Further, the Ubisoft boss pointed out that the game was received quite well, which the first wasn’t.

Lastly, Ubisoft noted Season Pass sales for the game were strong, while “record highs for engagement per player” were reached. It’s unclear what this exactly means, but it’s presumably saying the players put more hours into the game on average than the previous game.

The Division 2 is available for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. At the moment of publishing, there’s been no word of any additional ports, which seem unlikely at this point.

For more news, media, and information on the looter-shooter, be sure to peep all of our previous coverage of the game by clicking right here. And, as always, feel free to leave a comment letting us know what you think or hit me up on Twitter @Tyler_Fischer_ and let me know over there.