Wed, Jul 29, 2009 | 20:20 BST
Analyst predicts StarCraft II will sell 4 million units
Michael Pachter has said StarCraft II could sell 4 million units during its opening quarter.
Priced at $40 wholesale and $50 retail, that would put $160 million in Activision Blizzard’s coffers with operating profit hitting $80 million or 4 cents per share.
In response to yesterday’s MarketWatch report, where analysts were citing a StarCraft II release delay due to the late Beta testing, Pachter seemed more assured of the product.
“Nobody knows how long the StarCraft II beta will take,” he said. “It’s highly likely that the game is polished, with few or no bugs. The issue is balance, and until there is a large scale beta, Blizzard won’t be able to test every single weapon, defense, et cetera, in order to ensure that the three races are perfectly balanced.
“They did a phenomenal job with the World of Warcraft beta (as I recall, it was around four months), and they will have no issues at all in attracting 30,000 supremely knowledgeable beta testers, so my bias is that the beta will take less time than most expect.
“The Blizzard guys are perfectionists, and if they want to take six months, nobody at Activision is going to challenge them.
“So the bottom line is that StarCraft II will launch when Blizzard says so.”
More over on Gamasutra.
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Posted in: Activision Blizzard, Financials, PC, Strategy
Tags: micahel pachter, starcraft II
16 comments
#1
BULArmy
29/07/09, 8:41 pm
And by the end of the year SC2 will be the best-selling game this gen. And someone says that PC gaming is dead. Even with the piracy this game will be a HUGE financial success.
Hmmm, where is loki, when we have these kind of news for the PC gaming.
#2
Patrick Garratt
29/07/09, 8:45 pm
SC2 is going to be huge. No question.
#3
Phoenixblight
29/07/09, 8:48 pm
@1 sorry but SC2 is not coming out this year Beta hasn’t even started yet. Don’t know how people think a game will be coming out this year when Blizz means soon they mean when its done…
#4
Hunam
29/07/09, 8:49 pm
I kind of gave up caring about Blizzard and their silly release dance. The three game campaign and lack of LAN has left a sour taste in my mouth. I’ve just totally gone off them in recent years.
#5
Psychotext
29/07/09, 8:57 pm
I wont be buying this… BECAUSE I’LL SUCK AT IT.
#6
DarkElfa
29/07/09, 8:58 pm
I predict cheese will walk.
See, we can all do it.
#7
freedoms_stain
29/07/09, 9:18 pm
Are they still splitting it into 1 game per race thing?
Because I thought that was bullshit when I first heard it and it’s still bullshit now.
If they do I can see people buying one and pirating the other two…
#8
Grimrita
29/07/09, 9:22 pm
Well if anyone is good a polishing a turd, its Blizzard
#9
Phoenixblight
29/07/09, 9:37 pm
@7 that is correct it is split into three. The first part is human ofcourse…
#10
BULArmy
29/07/09, 10:00 pm
LoL I just can’t understand how you can’t understand the idea of spliting the game into 3 parts. It will be like BroodWar and BroodWar 2. Two HUGE expangions which add HUGE amount of new things.
#11
Phoenixblight
29/07/09, 10:06 pm
Or activision splitting them into three for more profits over 10 years since their main thing is WoW not Starcraft or Diablo
#12
freedoms_stain
29/07/09, 10:22 pm
Do they intend to stagger the releases?
@10, I understand the idea, I just see it as a way of charging 3x as much for 1 game.
I suppose it depends on how much content there is going to be. If it’s 10 missions per race as before then I don’t see how they can justify a triple price tag.
#13
loki
29/07/09, 10:27 pm
lol
#14
BC
30/07/09, 1:27 am
“Priced at $40 wholesale and $50 retail…”
Huh? I doubt that Bizzard-Activision is getting 80% of the retail price as revenue.
#15
anasui
30/07/09, 4:17 am
well no shit sherlock. At release Korea alone will have bought 700000 trillions copies already
thank god it’s got base building, or I’d give this a pass, just like that piece of shit DOW2
#16
jeremycafe
30/07/09, 2:30 pm
“lack of LAN”
LAN is still there. You simply have to log in to battle.net to verify your key. When you all join a game you are playing on your local network, not over a server.
You can’t really expect blizzard to make this difficult, it would never work on the pro scene if it was. It was a good move on their part and it wont change the way you play the game in anyway. When is the last time you actually played an RTS on a lan without getting on battle.net?