With sales on the decline, has Call of Duty hit its peak?

Gamasutra- According to official NPD Group data, lifetime retail sales of Black Ops stand at 16.4 million copies through July 2012 while sales of Modern Warfare 3 are at 13.7 million copies. You might recall that Modern Warfare 3 initially launched at a level 10% higher than Black Ops, but was falling behind in comparable period sales by the early months of 2012. On the other hand, Modern Warfare 3 has already surpassed sales of Modern Warfare 2 (2009) by about 800,000 units.

Activision recently commented that its a la carte sales of DLC for Modern Warfare 3 were down relative to a la carte DLC sales for Black Ops, but that premium Call of Duty Elite subscriptions mitigated the revenue. This suggests that the revenue from the latest games is not a disparate as the unit sales would suggest. When asked, Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities told me that "MW3 has no chance of catching Black Ops" in unit sales but that in terms of revenue it "will be close."

Which leaves open the question of what will happen to the next installment, Black Ops II due out in November of this year. Will Black Ops remain the peak for the series in terms of unit sales, or will Modern Warfare 3 simply have been a small step back before hitting a new high?

[hennessey86]

:D
Wishful thinking much

[FinaLXiii]

haha i dunno Black Ops 2 looks hot as hell! it may top mw3 in sales.

[SPAM-FRITTER-123]

Ageed. Blops2 looking great.

the MW series is going to have to think of fresh ideas as there has only been 1 good MW title and thats MW1. treyarch have never made a bad call of duty in my eyes.

[MultiConsoleGamer]

Too early to tell.

[Hufandpuf]

didn't the Elite pass thing make the revenue from MW3 higher than BLOPS?

[ProjectDeputy]

i hope it will....

that crappy arcade kitty trash fps need to die already

[Moby-Royale]

Did you mean "kiddy" as in implying that the game is *for children?

Or did you mean that this is, in fact, a game for lil kittens?

[MC_KOOL_K]

it will surpass Black Ops 1 by 3 million, with zero competition out there it will be easy

crysis 3 not worth playing on console best played on a pc
medal of honor 2 its just a cash in on cods popularity, a poor mans clone, when ea get around to giving us a real moh game, ill be interested
halo 4, some real competition but only on xbox
if nintendo had a zelda or mario at launch, that would be real blow to bops sales id have to mark 3 million off black ops sales

[Kopite_2020]

Not likely, it's just that MW3 was balls.

[DiRtY]

Every CoD sells more than 30 million copies. For example every Final Fantasy game on every platform all add together sold 90 million. So CoD surpasses FF every 3 years.

I would be shocked if it could grow even further. It is the best selling gaming franchise EVER.

*edit* please don't come up with Angry Birds or anything like that for obvious reasons.

[m-s-8-2]

Is it really fair to compare one games sales over 9 months another games 21?

[OVOXO_Mike]

Just another CoD hater looking for hits on their site by making another CoD article. Move on people, nothing to see here.

[GamerElite]

Don't people get sick of the same shit every year. Run and shoot-Rinse and repeat.

How about trying a new, more original game for a change.

[ChunkyLover53]

Some people figured MW3 would be a bit of a mess, they didn't get the full two year development time due to Infinity Ward leaving Activision high and dry. I think I read somewhere that Sledgehammer, Raven and what was left of Infinity Ward had around 9 months to do the game.

Treyarch always seems to support their COD games better, so I wouldn't be surprised to see Black Ops 2 do a lot better than MW3.