A rumor claims that physical pre-orders for Ubisoft’s upcoming Assassin’s Creed Shadows game are less than 800 from a national retail chain that has over 900 stores.

A screenshot from Assassin’s Creed Shadows (2024), Ubisoft

This rumor comes from Craig Skistimas aka Stuttering Craig, who owns and hosts the Side Scrollers Podcast. He wrote on X, “My insider told me that, as of this morning at their nation wide big box chain, Assassins’ Creed Shadows has less than 800 pre-orders combined for Xbox & PS5 company wide.”

He added, “They have over 900 stores. That is less than 1 preorder per store. YIKES.”

This post was a follow-up to a previous one where he claimed that Ubisoft’s Star Wars Outlaws only received a total 41 pre-orders from a retail chain located in a highly populated region of the United States where the chain has 27 stores.

He wrote, “I have an insider who works for high traffic game stores in one of the most populated places in the US. They have 27 stores in that area and there have been a total of 41 preorders for Star Wars Outlaws. FORTY ONE. There is NO hype for this game.”

 

On the PlayStation Store, the base game for Star Wars Outlaws is currently listed in the 6th position for pre-orders when sorted by best-selling titles.

It sits behind Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 – Vault Edition, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6- Cross-Gen Bundle, NBA 2k25 All-Star Edition, NBA 2K25 Hall of Fame Edition, and NBA 2K25 Standard Edition.

A screenshot of the PlayStation Store Pre-Orders sorted by Best-Selling taken on August 29, 2024

The Assassin’s Creed Shadows Ultimate Edition, which costs $129.99 sits in 22nd position on the list. The base game sits in the 31st position on the 2nd page.

The Gold Edition of Assassin’s Creed Shadows sits in the 42nd position.

A screenshot of the PlayStation Store Pre-Orders sorted by Best-Selling taken on August 29, 2024

Star Wars Outlaws is also in the 6th position for best selling titles in the United States behind Black Myth: Wukong, Fortnite, Call of Duty, EA Sports Madden NFL 25, and EA Sports College Football 25.

A screenshot of the PlayStation Store Best-Selling Games in the United States taken on August 29, 2024

Star Wars Outlaws is currently listed as the third best-selling new game on the PlayStation Store behind Black Myth: Wukong and EA Sports Madden NFL 25.

A screenshot of the PlayStation Store Best-Selling New Games in the United States taken on August 29, 2024

All of this comes in the wake of an investor expressing concern regarding sales for Star Wars Outlaws as well as Assassin’s Creed Shadows during Ubisoft’s most recent sales report.

During the company’s Q1 FY 2024 Sales report, Ubisoft noted that it expects to have net bookings in its second quarter come in around €500 million when it releases Star Wars Outlaws. For comparison, the company’s net bookings for the first quarter clocked in at €290.0 million when it released XDefiant.

Barclays’ Nick Dempsey questioned the low prediction in a Q&A session during the company’s sales call. He asked, “When I look at the guidance for Q2 and if I assume something similar for back catalog in Q2 as Q1 kind of getting to €200 to €230 million, that sort of range. For the new release Star Wars Outlaws, when I look at the $70 price and then assuming what you might get from it, I’m getting to around 5 million units, something in that sort of bracket. First of all, where could I be going wrong with that thinking? Secondly, are you just being pretty conservative in your guidance because I guess given the interest in that game we might have thought it would be more than 5 million units?”

Not only would he question the sales figures for Star Wars Outlaws, he also questioned the potential for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, “When I look at the second half, clearly, I think we are going to need a heavy contribution from Assassin’s Creed. But could it be those revenues would in fact be boosted by multiple hundreds of millions in partnership deals, that kind of range to get us over the line?”

A screenshot from Assassin’s Creed Shadows (2024), Ubisoft

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot responded to the first question saying, “We can’t comment on the very numbers you are quoting. But what we have factored in is a strong launch for Star Wars Outlaws that reflects the fact that it is among the most awaited games of the industry this year and a really strong, positive community sentiment. And also, the fact, that we are coming with the biggest marketing campaign ever, so far, for [an] Ubisoft game. So that’s what we’ve been factoring in the second quarter.”

As for his other question, Guillemot stated, “As we mentioned, we expect Shadows to be the most ambitious title of the series. We also anticipate that Star Wars, that is usually a very strong brand around Christmas, should do very well with the busy season with a strong impact also from [inaudible] content from both games. And also we expect further growth from Rainbow Six Siege as well as a strong impact of Shadows on the back catalog of Assassin’s Creed, plus the contribution of XDefiant.”

A screenshot from Assassin’s Creed Shadows (2024), Ubisoft

What do you make of this rumor about the lack of pre-orders for Star Wars Outlaws and Assassin’s Creed Shadows at these retail stores?