Part of their optimism is based on the impressive performance of the title in the Asian markets, where it generated in the past fiscal quarter $32.7 million in revenue, boosting NCsoft’s profits 451 percent up compared with the previous quarter. So yes, when such numbers are involved, you have the right to be very optimistic!
“I believe the performance of Aion in the US and European markets will be very successful. … We are guessing that Aion will be – could be – the second [most] successful MMO in the US market next to World of Warcraft,” said the company’s CFO Jaeho Lee according to Gamasutra.
NCsoft is just a little bit worried by the fact that retailers and maybe the public won’t be ready to trust the company so soon after the failure of Tabula Rasa, but the company is confident that in the end Aion will be “a very successful product”. And that’s a really interesting thing to say, having in mind that they will have to fight, for the second place, against Warhammer Online and Age of Conan, two popular MMOs already. Not to mention the fact that Champions Online is coming too…
So what do you thing? Will the gamers and retailers forget (or forgive the company for) the flop that was Tabula Rasa and Aion will indeed be at least as successful as it is in Asia?