Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter has suggested that concerns over Star Wars: The Old Republic sales are "overblown".
"Some of our competitors have suggested that the 'consensus' first quarter sales estimate was 3 million units, or over a million above our own estimate, which we believe is not only unrealistic, but borders on the absurd.
"Activision Blizzard's World of Warcraft, the most successful MMO of all time, sold 1.5 million units in its first month, and an additional 2.5 million units in its first year, representing sales of around 50,000 units per week after the first few weeks."
Pachter thinks about 1.7 million copies of The Old Republic have been sold to date. "We continue to expect Star Wars to have a meaningful impact on revenue and earnings growth in upcoming quarters. As mentioned previously, we expect sell-in of 2 million units in Q3:12 (with an additional 1 million units next year)," he said.
EA has "probably" invested close to half a billion dollars in Star Wars: The Old Republic, Cowen & Company analyst Doug Creutz said earlier this week.
The publisher has said that The Old Republic will turn a profit if it manages to retain half a million subscribers, and claimed over Christmas that the title is the fastest-growing subscription MMO in history.
Comments
9 comments so far...
damoxuk on 20 Jan '12 said:
Doesn't matter how many copies sold in MMO' s it's how many stay on for the paying month.
toaplan on 20 Jan '12 said:
Pachter - the voice of reason? (Who would have thought...) I really hope he's right or at least close to the truth, as I think it's a great game and I'm always supportive of developers attempting these kinds of ambitious mega-projects.
Pixiesoft on 20 Jan '12 said:
If you are going to charge a monthly fee on top of the original outlay of a game then I feel you are on a loser. Monthly subs are a big con and games like Guild Wars 2 put things into perspective in the day and age. I would love to play SWOR but I refuse to pay monthly just to play a game.
sulli456 on 20 Jan '12 said:
I am with you there, i refuse to pay to buy the game, but then have to pay monthly to play it, just doesn't seem right to me.
divinebeetle on 21 Jan '12 said:
Never played an MMO and this is the only one I have been remotely tempted by really, but the monthly costs put me off too.
Not alot in the scheme of things but can't justify it with my current game backlog
Terranova1 on 21 Jan '12 said:
I'll wait until it has a free to play option, it will go that way soon enough maybe a year from now but it will go, Star trek online went free to play this week and they have already seen a big increase in numbers even if only half of the new players stay that's still far more money that perfect world will be making via the cash store than if it were just monthly subs.
sulli456 on 21 Jan '12 said:
You sir have made my day, i have been waiting on the star trek becoming free to play since it first came out. And you have brought good news. So i want you to have some good feelings for making someones week when things have been going bad.
davelk on 21 Jan '12 said:
Star Trek was awfull simply awfull game and it went FTP because it was utter crap , and to compare the two is like comparing lobster with gone off Tesco value fish fingers.
Riffxxx on 23 Jan '12 said:
Disgusting waste of money.