Battlefield 3 sales estimates up to 11m for first year
Star Wars: The Old Republic release expected in December
Analyst firm Cowen & Company is raising its first-year sales estimates for EA's Battlefield 3 from 8 million to 11 million.
The game, already benefiting from an extensive marketing campaign ahead of the October release, is seeing pre-order's "roughly comparable" to last's year's Call of Duty: Black Ops - a title that has so far sold over 20 million units worldwide.
Yesterday Electronic Arts began taking pre-orders for Star Wars: The Old Republic and announced a beta for September, ahead of a holiday release, causing shares in the publisher to take a slight dip.
"We would have expected this to be greeted as good news, since a 2012 launch appears unlikely, but the mildly negative reaction by ERTS shares yesterday suggests investor expectations for the game are quite high," commented Cowen & Company.
The firm now expects a launch for the anticipated MMO in December, rather than October.