During Activision Blizzard's financial conference call today, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime states that sales of its sci-fi RTS game StarCraft II are approaching 4.5 million units since its release back in July. While that's huge for a PC exclusive game that's actually less than some people though it would sell. Several months ago Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey predicted the game would sell as much as 7 million copies by the end of Activision Blizzard current fiscal year which ends on March 31.

Part of the reason for the lower numbers may be that the game has yet to launch in China. During the conference call Morhaime stated that Blizzard was working with its partner Netease to launch StarCraft II in that country but so far there's no word on a China release date. Meanwhile the game's players have uploaded over 150,000 user-made maps to Battle.net. Morhaime stated that work continues on the next game, StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, but offered no other details.