Despite Activision's optimistic US$ 250 million sales estimate for the end of Q3 for fiscal year 2007, Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter seems to think that the Santa Monica-based publisher's projections were a bit modest. In fact, Pachter believes that with last quarter's spillover success of Transformers: The Game and RedOctane's Guitar Hero II, Activision should expect to net a whole lot more.

A note entitled Encore: Activision Rocks the Quarter, Again authored by Pachter ran numbers for Guitar Hero II's sales estimates, and the guitar rhythm title has already gained a consolidated 3.5 million unit sales on both the Sony PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox 360, leading to at least US$ 270 million in gross sales.

Pachter does admit that the publisher's lineup has but a few big titles that could have warranted the throttled projection, but he does acknowledge that id Software's Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars and RedOctane's Guitar Hero Encore: Rock the 80s would have uplifted the performance by some degree. Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PS3, Microsoft Windows PC) has yet to make landfall in North America, so it would contribute to Activision's Q4 sales.

Overall, the analyst pegs a more optimistic target of US$ 300 million (59% increase from last year's quarter performance) to be nabbed in sales for this quarter, due to a predicted 122% increase in sales for the publisher's current products. In a short note, Pachter added, "We think guidance is extremely conservative and recommend that investors opportunistically add to positions."

Looks like his confidence is placed, but investors may still have to ponder this one out.