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Diablo III to sell 5 million in its first year, says analyst

Diablo III will sell 5 million units in its first year on sale, Cowen & Company analyst Doug Creutz has predicted following the announcement of the game's worldwide release in May yesterday.

"Our street-high FY12 EPS estimate of $1.05 assumes first year unit sell-through of 5MM for Diablo III, and assumes that over 1MM of the units incorporate the World of Warcraft 'annual pass' deal which allows WoW players who commit to a one-year subscription to receive Diablo III for free," he said in a general Activision note, published by CVG.

Blizzard confirmed a May 15 global release for the long-in-development RPG yesterday.

Cruetz also predicted a 2013 launch for the next big thing from Bungie a 2014 Titan launch from Blizzard.

"We expect three Blizzard titles to ship over the next twelve months (Diablo III, Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm, and World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria); we expect the new Bungie title to ship in 2013; and we expect Blizzard's new MMO to ship in 2014.

"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."

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Johnny Cullen

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Johnny has experience at a wide range of games media outlets, having written for Eurogamer, Play Magazine, PC Gamer, GameDaily, and more. He worked at VG247 pumping out news at an astonishing rate for several years. More recently, he founded the games website PlayDiaries.

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