Analyst group Cowen and Company says that it has "increasing confidence" in EA and BioWare Austin's upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO, and has doubled its sell-through estimate for the title.
Doug Creutz and Jason Mueller of Cowen and Company noted that strong preorders of the title on Amazon suggest that The Old Republic is trending "well or better" than StarCraft 2 and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, both of which sold over 4 million units each.
The analyst revealed that it now estimates The Old Republic will sell roughly 3 million units in its first year, up from its original estimate of 1.5 million units. It also believes that the game will see around 2 million subscribers in total during the first year of sale, up from an earlier estimate of 1 million.
EA also has relatively few execution risks on the horizon, says the analyst, as both NCAA Football 12 appears to be off to a "good start, and the upcoming Madden NFL 12 appears to be tracking ahead of last year's version. Meanwhile, Playfish is set to release The Sims Social on Facebook next week.
October's military first-person shooter Battlefield 3 is also "track[ing] well ahead of its launch", according to the report, and will sell 11 million units in the first year at retail.
Earlier this year, Cowen and Company stated thatBattlefield 3 rival, Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, will outsell the title with an estimated 25 million units sold in its first year.
I think 3 million is on the low end. People in the larger MMO community have been waiting for this game to come out for years. Add in the enormously recognizable IP and the much wider acceptance of MMOs due to WoW's success and, again, 3 million sounds small.
There was a overly vibrant SWG community before The Patch That Ruined It. If former SWG players see this as a worthy successor then I could be talked into buying it.
But, yeah, they could easily sell 3 Mill after one slick superbowl ad.
But how independent this research is? From an sub-based MMO perspective it's irrelevant how many copies do you sell, it's all about the conversion rate and the sub #. In fact I would argue that low sales and lots of subs would show a EA that can deliver in the MMO space.
Warcraft sold what, 50 million copies? Not exactly relevant as their financials are built around ARPU and not one time sales.
Bring it. Sith I will be and am ready to slaughter Jedi like so many cattle.
As for gameplay I really hope that the whole story telling mechanic that Bioware has going for this game works out. From the dev videos I have seen it looks very interesting to say the least. The combat mechanics look intriguing as well. I think this will be a day one purchase for me. Go Bioware!
My opinion is that the prediction is spot on, but the game looks so rubbish that it will probably fail to keep subscribers on the year following its release much like the Warhammer MMO.
To be honest, I don't understand the hype around this game. Yes its Bioware, known for their great story lines, and emersion. But if the game play is fundamentally boring and repetitive (like how SWOTOR is from playing it in beta), then its not going to stack up. I like Mark V's comment, it'll sell big like all MMO do at first, but it won't stay that way for long.
But, yeah, they could easily sell 3 Mill after one slick superbowl ad.
Warcraft sold what, 50 million copies? Not exactly relevant as their financials are built around ARPU and not one time sales.
The game has to deliver something unique.
And not be WoW reskinned.
As for gameplay I really hope that the whole story telling mechanic that Bioware has going for this game works out. From the dev videos I have seen it looks very interesting to say the least. The combat mechanics look intriguing as well. I think this will be a day one purchase for me. Go Bioware!