I doubt DA will be as mainstream as KotOR.
Then DArtagnan shouldn't worry about DA, since he thinks the former is a masterpiece and dumbing down is a major concern.
Because EA sees Bethesda's sales numbers and knows how many units Bio has moved in the past, often through 2nd rate publishers. I don't see a reason why Bio & EA shouldn't be able to do what Bethesda & Ubi did.
The following shouldn't be taken as an attack on Bio - I'm not suggesting they don't have fantastic sales.
Why shouldn't they do Bethsoft numbers? Because they haven't done those numbers for a while, and even then only when you look at long-term numbers across multiple skus (expansions etc).
I'm not sure which numbers you mean but I assume you mean Atari as the 2nd rate publisher (because their more recent partners have been Microsoft, then LucasArts, aside from PC ports which would account for a few hundred thousand)? If so, we're talking about NWN in 2003, which has sold 3M across all skus.
KotOR has lifetime sales of 3M...with arguably the biggest IP in the world.
The first shipping sell-in for Fallout 3 was 4.5M. Yes, I know sell-in and sell-through are different but I'm pretty sure that FO3 will comfortably surpass Bio's best seller and much faster. You have to add every Baldur's Gate sku to come up with 5M lifetime sales and that's a long time back.
Perhaps the multiplatform release of DA will bring bigger results but I don't see solid evidence of getting Bethsoft numbers. Of course, I haven't seen the game - maybe it is that good or maybe my data is wrong.
Or maybe Riccitello needs to justify the ridiculous price they paid, in light of mounting poor EA results.