Woods scandal "may have permanently damaged" sales
First month sales down 68%, Wii sales down 86%; Skate 3, Green Day also disappoint
Electronic Arts' sports franchise Tiger Woods PGA Tour may have suffered permanent sales damage due to the star's public infidelities.
The latest in the series, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11, was released in June and suffered a 68 per cent drop in US sales compared to last year's iteration, which was released in the same month.
Although last year the Wii version of the game shipped with the Wii MotionPlus accessory, Doug Creutz of Cowan & Company labelled the 86 per cent decline in Wii sales of PGA Tour 11 as "particularly catastrophic."
"Although this is probably due in part to the fact that last year's version shipped bundled with Nintendo's new MotionPlus controller, we are concerned that Woods' scandal woes may have permanently damaged the sales potential of what we believe to be EA's third most important sports franchise, behind Madden and FIFA," he wrote in a note to investors.
At the start of the year, EA Sports president Peter Moore denied the franchise had been impacted by revelations of Wood's sex life, although that was before the release of the latest console game and Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online.
Looking at other EA titles released in May and June, Creutz pointed to Skate 3, with sales down 40 per cent compared to the first two month's of Skate 2, and the sale of 82,000 units of Green Day: Rock Band as the reason for reducing full year revenue estimates for the publisher from $538 million to $475 million for the first financial quarter of 2011.