Analyst: Diablo 3 Will Sell 5 Million Units in First Year of Release

March 15, 2012 -

With Blizzard announcing today that Diablo 3 will be released on May 15, it was only a matter of time before an analyst rolled out the cart with the crystal ball to make a prognostication about the game's sales.

"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."

The first two Diablo games - including expansions - have sold over 20 million units to date.

While we might make light of analyst predictions, it's tough not to agree that Diablo 3 will sell very well in its first year on the market and will get a slight boost from the World of Warcraft annual pass deal. Of course, World of Warcraft may be the greatest benefactor in such a deal, because people are eager to play Diablo 3 as soon as possible...

Source: C&VG

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Comments

Re: Analyst: Diablo 3 Will Sell 5 Million Units in First ...

Submitted by SYSS Mouse on Thu, 03/15/2012 - 19:13.

Plus among those 5 million I wonder how many of those are wow players.

FYI: As part of a promotion those paying for annual pass will receive a free copy of Diablo III.

Re: Analyst: Diablo 3 Will Sell 5 Million Units in First ...

Submitted by Iris on Fri, 03/16/2012 - 08:17.

Well, according to MMO Champion, about 1 million Annual Passes were sold in the West - http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2644-WoW-stabilizes-over-10M-subscribers-down-100k-in-Q4-2011

Re: Analyst: Diablo 3 Will Sell 5 Million Units in First ...

Submitted by hellfire7885 on Thu, 03/15/2012 - 22:31.

I signed up for that myself, It's a good deal if you ask me.

Re: Analyst: Diablo 3 Will Sell 5 Million Units in First ...

Submitted by ZippyDSMlee on Thu, 03/15/2012 - 16:46.

Much like star starcraft I wont be buying it. Make a decent Warcraft game set after the frozen throne and I might be sucked back into bliz games.....

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http://zippydsm.deviantart.com/

Re: Analyst: Diablo 3 Will Sell 5 Million Units in First ...

Submitted by Papa Midnight on Thu, 03/15/2012 - 23:13.

I did... for $30. Retail. I like Blizzard games a lot, I really do. I still enjoy Warcraft 2 games with some friends every once in a while. But I can't justify $60 for a game to myself. Hell, come to think of it, I've never paid MSRP for a game above $49.99. I'll always wait for a deal of some kind.

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Papa Midnight

Re: Analyst: Diablo 3 Will Sell 5 Million Units in First ...

Submitted by hellfire7885 on Thu, 03/15/2012 - 17:19.

Um, they have. It's called World of Warcraft.

Re: Analyst: Diablo 3 Will Sell 5 Million Units in First ...

Submitted by E. Zachary Knight on Fri, 03/16/2012 - 09:06.

World of Warcraft is not an RTS so I don't think it would qualify as a follow up to Warcraft 3

E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
OK Game Devs
Random Tower

Re: Analyst: Diablo 3 Will Sell 5 Million Units in First ...

Submitted by hellfire7885 on Fri, 03/16/2012 - 13:10.

Well to me it continues the story from the end of Warcraft 3, so it's still set after it. After all the events so far I have no idea what they would put into a new RTS.

Re: Analyst: Diablo 3 Will Sell 5 Million Units in First ...

Submitted by Mr.Tastix on Fri, 03/16/2012 - 04:10.

World of Warcraft's popularity is certain, but it's quality is highly subjective.

If repetition makes a good game then yes, it's bloody fantastic. That's usually not the primary factor when deciding if a game is good, however.

MMOs are also a bit of a cheap deal when marking them as "good" because they have excuses to deal with the problem of not having a strong storyline or character set-up. Those points matter but not nearly as much as the content, in comparison to a singleplayer game that doesn't really have an "end-game".

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Randi Tastix - http://randomtastic.com