Analyst: Star Wars: The Old Republic Could Sell 3M

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 that Battlefield 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.