Found this over at our friends at Sporeum. GigaOM figures that the chances that Spore will sell well aren't that big. I think the guy didn't do his research properly. There are easily a 100 Spore fansites in just about any language you can think of which to me is always a good indication of how popular a game will be. He does have a point in this paragraph though:
The Sims sold 3.2 million copies in the US, and about as much worldwide, but if I were to guess, Spore will ultimately sell far below those numbers– somewhere between Black and White7, Peter Molyneux’s similarly-ambitious (and quirky) god game (530,000 units sold in America) and Wright’s Sim City 3000 Unlimited (1.1 million copies sold). Let’s say 750,000 units. Which would make it a giant bestseller, to be sure, but certainly not the savior of the company’s market valuation that Probst imagines it to be. Whether those numbers would financially justify the game’s 7 year production cycle or the tens of millions spent during that time, or the millions spent by EA to promote it, is hard to say, as well.I'm no expert but I would say that Spore -will- outsell Sim City 3000, but it will not outsell The Sims. Some 1.5 million copies perhaps? That is double what the author of the article estimates BUT - and this is where he has a point - it also may not be enough for the game to be really profitable.
Time will tell I guess. The full article can be found at
GigaOM.
