Sometimes, having high hopes for your product is not necessarily a good thing because you risk being disappointed if things don't come true. However, we would be making a mistake if we were to call Funcom disappointed with its sales of the recently released Age of Conan MMORPG. But it is clear that they are lower than what it had hoped for.

In a press statement released earlier today, Funcom announced that AoC would soon pass the "one million units sold" landmark in less than a month after the release. These are clearly some huge sales, especially for a PC game - it has been claiming number one spots on the sales charts across Europe - Germany, France and the UK, but also in the US in recent weeks.

"Sales data shows that Age of Conan is the biggest MMO launch since World of Warcraft," says Funcom Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Morten Larssen. "The numbers are very promising, and we are very proud to be one of the fastest selling PC games ever in a launch month and the biggest simultaneous Europe/US MMO launch in history."

However, even though in the United States sales are quickly moving past the 500,000 units sold, the figures are way lower than Funcom's estimated sales before the release: in May, the company stated that it expected no less than 700,000 units to be sold in North America, on day one only. Yet, the game needed three weeks for half a million...

Even though these sales figures are lower than expected, Age of Conan is still the biggest MMO launch since World of Warcraft was released. The numbers are growing and positive reviews keep coming, which means that indeed the Hyborian Adventures might be a threat to WoW's supremacy. However, a million players are nothing compared to Blizzard's colossus. But it's still early to talk about numbers...