Walt post was on Q23 but he used to paste it everywhere and so did I, so I don't know where you saw it.
By the way, both Blizzard numbers and Dave numbers don't seem convincing, for the reasons you explained. At this point is hard to know who's right. Maybe you can set what Dave said as a floor and what Blizzard said as a roof but the doubts won't vanish.
From the start, more than one year ago, my prevision on WoW was that it would reach at least 400k in six months. That's what I repeated everywhere till the release. Again I was basing my estimation on the numbers of the current market, knowing the quality and type of the game. WoW strongly cannibalized the current scenario, they also introduced many more players but if the total goes above 500k I start to feel doubtful. Still, I've never seen a mmorpg remain at the first places of the selling charts for months. The last week WoW was actually FIRST.
There are all these elements to consider. The concurrent log ins don't matter because they reached that peak during the Christmas and right now they are nowhere that cap (the queues are way reduced with no changes in the infrastructure).
The point is that the difference (about NA) between 450k and 750k isn't that small and both are somewhat justified. Less justified, instead, is a blend between those two numbers, because it would mean that both Dave and Blizzard are wrong. And it isn't believable again.
Both not convincing
Walt post was on Q23 but he used to paste it everywhere and so did I, so I don't know where you saw it.
By the way, both Blizzard numbers and Dave numbers don't seem convincing, for the reasons you explained. At this point is hard to know who's right. Maybe you can set what Dave said as a floor and what Blizzard said as a roof but the doubts won't vanish.
From the start, more than one year ago, my prevision on WoW was that it would reach at least 400k in six months. That's what I repeated everywhere till the release. Again I was basing my estimation on the numbers of the current market, knowing the quality and type of the game. WoW strongly cannibalized the current scenario, they also introduced many more players but if the total goes above 500k I start to feel doubtful. Still, I've never seen a mmorpg remain at the first places of the selling charts for months. The last week WoW was actually FIRST.
There are all these elements to consider. The concurrent log ins don't matter because they reached that peak during the Christmas and right now they are nowhere that cap (the queues are way reduced with no changes in the infrastructure).
The point is that the difference (about NA) between 450k and 750k isn't that small and both are somewhat justified. Less justified, instead, is a blend between those two numbers, because it would mean that both Dave and Blizzard are wrong. And it isn't believable again.