Homefront Sells-Through 375K Units In North America Day-One

THQ says sell-through of its new first-person shooter, Homefront, came in at about 375,000 day-one units in North America this week. The title will hit Europe and Asia on March 15 and 18, respectively. "We are delighted with first day sales for Homefront and are already fulfilling re-orders for the game from multiple retailers," says THQ president and CEO Brian Farrell. A company spokesperson confirmed to Gamasutra in a phone call that the sales figure is sold-through to customers, not just shipped to retailers. The estimate comes from data provided by digital, online and physical retail partners, she said. The sales figure comes on the back of about 200,000 pre-orders announced for the game at the beginning of March. Analysts projected about 2 million in sales for the game ahead of its release. Homefront was backed by a heavy marketing campaign and has been a key title for the core-focused arm of THQ's business, which may help it overcome its fairly tepid critical reception in an environment where AAA titles tend to need quite high scores to attain meaningful market penetration. This is especially true in the competitive first-person shooter genre, and yesterday the company's stock fell 25 percent in the wake of the title's low-70s Metacritic ranking. Further, the title's already been discounted to $40 at retailers Amazon and Walmart after just a day on sale. But Cowen and Company analyst Doug Creutz said yesterday that while weak critical reception "will likely hamper the title's ability to achieve breakout success," the strong marketing buzz could ensure that the title could still move 2 million units. And THQ also banks on the longer-term performance on games that have strong multiplayer components that can be supported through additional content: "Due to the strong and growing demand for Homefront's multiplayer, we continue to add dedicated server capacity," says THQ Core Games executive VP Danny Bilson. "We are confident that the large-scale multiplayer maps featuring 32 players, vehicles, infantry and drones, will continue to be a major draw for the huge audience of FPS gamers looking for a new experience over the coming months," he adds.