Recent concerns over the profitability of Star Wars: The Old Republic are overblown, according to industry analyst Michael Pachter.

While EA's stocks have dropped 3 per cent after analyst firm Brean Murray Carret & Co expressed concerns the game was selling below expectations, Pachter argues this is untrue.

"We believe that these concerns are overblown," he says.

"And that the company's revenues are tracking ahead of the high end of guidance for the fiscal year."

By the December quarter of 2012 he goes on to say that Star Wars: The Old Republic is likely to see at least 2 million units shipped internationally, based on statistics of physical and digital sales throughout North America and Europe. Looking at initial December launch sales, he states:

"According to NPD, December U.S. Sell-through of physical copies of the game was over 600,000 units, and we estimate that EA's digital distribution platform Origin likely accounted for 25 - 35% of sales domestically, suggesting that the domestic sales figure was over 800,000 units.

"In our view, the fan base for Star Wars, MMOs and PC games in general skews slightly more European, meaning international sales, which we estimate to be 900,000 units, exceeded the domestic figure. Our combined sell-through estimate of 1.7 million units worldwide implies sell-in of at least 2 million units shipped during the December quarter, in-line with our expectations."

Currently the game has seen a peak user level of 500,000 players, which Pachter believes is a reasonable representation of its userbase, and expects this to grow by 1 to 3 per cent on a weekly basis.

On top of this, Pachter expects to see another million units in sales by 2013, as well as 1 to 1.2 million users deciding to become paying subscribers starting January 20, 2012 after the 30-day trial expires.

Due to the initial $50 investment in the game, he states between 75 and 90 per cent of players will decide to subscribe.

Star Wars: The Old Republic recently released its first major content patch, Rise of the Rakghouls, this week.

[video]10871[/video]