Apex Legends Helped EA "Significantly Outperform Our Expectations" In Last Quarter

Electronic Arts released its Q1 and FY2019 financial statement yesterday, and on the follow-up earnings call, had all sorts of nice things to say about Apex Legends. The battle royale shooter's "first 30 days was off the chart" which helped the company "significantly outperform our expectations in Q4," according to COO/CFO Blake Jorgensen.

CEO Andrew Wilson chimed in to note that Apex Legends had exceeded 50 million players, with nearly 30% of them being "new to EA" -- which, one might surmise, means new accounts on Origin, since plenty of people might have played EA's games via other platforms. Live services net bookings were up 24%, the biggest year ever for EA's live services, "primarily driven by Apex Legends," Jorgensen said. EA is currently self-publishing Apex Legends in Korea, with plans to bring it to China and to mobile devices in the future.

If you're interested in EA's "other" Free MMO title, Star Wars: The Old Republic got exactly one mention in the earnings call, during the Q&A session, where Jorgensen said there was a "Slight decline in our Star Wars: The Old Republic." Meanwhile, in the understatement of the year (so far), EA's other high-profile title for the quarter, Anthem, "did not meet our expectations."

In total, the company is booking $300 to $400 million for Apex Legends earnings in the next fiscal year, which will run until March 31, 2020. You can read the full transcript of the earnings conference call here.