Over a decade's worth of hype for Diablo 3 may translate into strong sales. Cowen and Company analyst Doug Creutz said recently that Blizzard's action RPG will sell five million copies in its first year.
Cowen and Company's prediction (via CVG) assumes that over a million World of Warcraft players have signed up for that game's Annual Pass. The Annual Pass is a year-long commitment to WoW that includes a free copy of Diablo III among other perks. In other words, the company's predicting that four million people will buy D3 by itself.
This estimate actually feels like a safe bet. Diablo II sold about four million copies in its first year. The gaming industry has grown quite a bit over the last decade, too.
Activision Blizzard's next twelve months are looking bright on the whole, according to Cowen and Company. They estimate that Blizzard will ship StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm and World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria during that period as well.
"We also expect Call of Duty to maintain its dominating FPS leadership position, and we believe that the company has a great opportunity to build on its initial success of its Skylanders franchise. Finally, World of Warcraft Western subs continue to appear to be stable vs. year-end levels. We think ATVI shares can outperform the market by 20% over the next 12 months."
Blizzard announced yesterday that Diablo 3 will debut on May 15th. They also revealed that the WoW Annual Pass won't be offered past May 1st.
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