Retail research firm Sterne Agee is predicting that Sledgehammer’s franchise debut Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare will not sell as well as previous entry Call of Duty: Ghosts.
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Cinema Blend[/url] reports that Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia has estimated a 15% drop in sales, which translates to roughly 17 million copies shipped rather than 20 million. Not a drop in numbers likely to concern most companies, but then again this is Activision’s blockbuster franchise. So why the decline?
Well, Bhatia cites a general feeling of disappointment with the lacklustre Ghosts, as well as the natural bridging period between old and new consoles - Xbox 360 and PS3 sales are dropping, and not everyone has made the transition to the the current generation of hardware.
Right now pre-orders for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare compare unfavourably to Ghosts, suggesting a more modest opening performance. Which is odd, because right from the outset this looks like a far, far more interesting take on the familiar Call of Duty formula. That’s the damage a single uninspiring entry can do to your franchise.
Bhatia’s quick to point out that we shouldn’t write off Advanced Warfare just yet. Pre-release buzz has been good, and without a Battlefield title to compete against, there’s little genre competition for Sledgehammer’s game to worry about.
We’ll have to wait and see how well Advanced Warfare is received when it launches this November. If it underperforms compared to Ghosts that would be two consecutive years of declining sales. At which point Activision would have to start asking themselves some tough questions regarding the future of the franchise.
