Analysts: Old Republic Sales Fears “Overblown”

EA's stock price has been slipping recently over concerns that sales of the publisher's flagship MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic, haven't been strong enough to recoup the game's hefty costs. Now, two of the industry's top analysts have come out in defense of the company, calling those fears "overblown."

Ben Schachter, analyst for Macquarie Securities, told Gamasutra that the slip in investor confidence is more speculative than anything else, and should be treated as such. While NPD reports have been below expectation, Schachter notes that those numbers only account for retail sales, and he expects that a majority of day one purchases occurred on EA's Origin service. Until the publisher releases its internal sales figures, any appraisal is merely conjecture.

Meanwhile, Wedbush Securities' Michael Pachter conveyed a similar sentiment in a note to investors, as reported by CVG.

"EA shares have been under assault over the past two months (and especially the past week), as many of our competitors have opined that the company's MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic was tracking well below 'consensus' expectations," the note begins.

"Some of our competitors have suggested that the 'consensus' first quarter sales estimate was 3 million units, or over a million above our own estimate, which we believe is not only unrealistic, but borders on the absurd.

"Activision Blizzard's World of Warcraft, the most successful MMO of all time, sold 1.5 million units in its first month, and an additional 2.5 million units in its first year, representing sales of around 50,000 units per week after the first few weeks."

Pachter goes on to state that he believes The Old Republic is tracking well above those figures, with around 1.7 million copies sold to date. With that in mind, he expects the MMO will have a "meaningful impact" on EA's profits over the next year, and ultimately prove to be a worthy investment for the publisher.