Analyst: The Old Republic Will Sell 3 Million Units in First Year

Cowen & Company, one of the analysis firms that watch the video game industry, has announced that it has increased its estimates for the BioWare made MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, with sales now projected at more than 3 million units during its first year on sale.

It seems that the main reason for the increased estimate is linked to the amount of pre-orders that the game has received on Amazon, with analysts Doug Creutz and Jason Mueller saying that at the moment The Old Republic is performing better than both Starcraft II and the Cataclysm expansion for World of Warcraft, which are created by Blizzard.

The original estimate from Cowen & Company was of 1.5 million units and an even earlier announcement said that the game would only sell 1 million copies.

Executives from Electronic Arts have suggested that, despite the big investment that they have made in Star Wars: The Old Republic, they need just half a million subscribers in the long term to make the MMO profitable.

At the moment Electronic Arts has not announced when the new Star Wars MMO will be launched, although it is expected to come before Christmas, but the company has recently announced that the game will have no region lock.

The two analysts are saying that The Old Republic will likely be one of several successes that Electronic Arts will be able to boast about in the coming months, including The Sims Social game that is being prepared for Facebook and a good performance from Madden NFL 12.

Battlefield 3 is also set to do well when it launches and will reach 11 million units in sales while Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is projected to sell 25 million copies all over the world, breaking the record set by Black Ops during last year.