- It's launch day for Star Wars: Battlefront, one of the year's biggest videogame rollouts, but Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:EA) may want to skip the earliest reviews.
- The game is getting a 73 rating -- "mixed or average reviews" -- on Metacritic for its Xbox One version (15 critics). The PlayStation 4 version is faring a bit better with a 78 (generally favorable), from 13 critics.
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EA shares are flat today, while rivals Activision Blizzard (ATVI +3.1%) and Take-Two (TTWO +2.4%) are much stronger.
- Mizuho's Neil Doshi is unperturbed; many of the worst reviews were from people expecting a single-player campaign, he says, and major sites have yet to post their takes. He still agrees with EA that the company could sell 13M units by the end of March and reiterated a Buy rating and $84 target (near 24% upside implied).
- Along with reviewers, Piper Jaffray's Michael Olson noted a dearth of content in the game as sold, but industry trends suggest that can be remedied by a year of strong downloadable content that EA could provide. Olson has an Overweight rating and an $87 price target.
- Previously: EA +1% as Oppenheimer launches at Outperform on strong slate, margins (Nov. 12 2015)
- Previously: Electronic Arts sinks 5% after beat-and-raise, bullish targets (Oct. 30 2015)
- Previously: Electronic Arts +1.6% as Piper Jaffray reiterates Buy (Oct. 27 2015)