Red Dead Redemption 2 might do some insane sales numbers according to Macquarie Securities analyst Ben Schachter. Rockstar Games highly anticipated open-world western may be selling over 12 million copies during Take-Two's second fiscal quarter.

　　Schacter told Games Industry that the game's announcement was one of the key factors in his prediction:

　　Notably, in its first hour, the announcement received 54K likes and 61K retweets on Twitter, 152K likes and 52K comments on Facebook, and 65K likes on Instagram. We think this demonstrates significant pent-up demand and interest for the sequel.

　　Schacter is right that the reaction to Red Dead Redemption 2's announcement was fairly well received, after fans have been waiting a good long while for a sequel which means a big launch is almost certain. In fact, we already had a glimpse of this when Red Dead Redemption became available on Xbox One through backward compatibility; this led to a huge increase in sales.

　　The analyst also predicts that a PC version could be released in early 2018, which seems to line up with Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter's similar prediction. If this is the case, 12 million copies spread across three platforms definitely seems like an achievable number. The original Red Dead Redemption sold over 14 million copies in the five years since release without coming out on PC at all. Given the popularity of the franchise and the promise of a new online component to the game, Red Dead Redemption 2 will probably be one of, if not the, biggest releases in 2017 and it's a safe bet that it will be a contender for Game of the Year Awards just like all the latest games produced by Rockstar.

　　Red Dead Redemption 2 is due in Fall 2017 on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, with exclusive online content coming first on PlayStation 4.