Infinity Ward’s newest FPS title under the Call of Duty banner, Call of Duty: Ghosts, may have seen immense popularity on release with the game even going top of charts in the U.S. and UK, but it seems like the game had a comparatively weaker launch to what was experienced with the release of the previous Black Ops 2, as revealed by analyst recently.
Speaking in a recent investor note, Cowen analyst Doug Creutz noted that Call of Duty: Ghosts sales were down 19 percent on a year-over-year scale, compared to Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.
“Upon further reflection, we think the [Call of Duty] numbers are a bit more troubling than they first appeared,” Creutz wrote in a note to investors, as scripted by GamesBeat. “While the year-over-year gap is only 19 percent thus far, that includes two extra weeks of sales for the 360 and PS3 versions [of Black Ops II]. Against 2011′s [Modern Warfare 3], where the difference is only one week, the title is down 32 percent life-to-date.”
“We don’t think it is out of the question that the title could wind up comparing down 20 percent to 25 percent year-over-year [to Black Ops II], which is appreciably worse than the down 10 to 15 percent that we think is baked in to guidance,” he added.
However, it was also revealed that it was not entirely unexpected that the game would experience lo sale figures compared to Black Ops 2. Apparently, Activision had warned investors that many gamers were delaying on making a purchase as they looked forward to prepare the inevitable transition from older systems like Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 to the next-gen Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles.
Later, the game’s publisher also told investors that it was already anticipating that Call of Duty: Ghosts sales would fall short of what Black Ops 2 experienced at launch. However, analyst Creutz later revealed that a closer look at the sales figure numbers show that things are currently even worse for Call of Duty: Ghosts than what the Activision initially thought it to be.
Call of Duty: Ghosts arrived on Nov. 5 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, and PC. In comparison, Black Ops 2 didn’t release until Nov. 12 last year. So Ghosts, even though it had more time after release, compared to its predecessor, couldn’t make the most of the situation.
