Imo it's only going to start suffering once we change generation and consoles - as thats a time when it seems new franchises can best emerge just like COD4 and Assassin's Creed did. (I know previous COD's were successful but nothing like COD4).

 Yearly franchises can cause fatigue and suffer, but the sports games cope fine, Need for Speed still sells 4m every year despite releasing some awful, awful games and nothing points to any sort of COD fall yet.

  The real questions are will someone make a better product to rival COD, as there simply isn't one which can hold that much appeal yet - and how much more will Activision milk COD...once a year seems sustainable at the very least.

I think people would be like "WTF space guns, i'm not some f****** kid."

That's just based off the people I know who like COD though.

Well assuming MW3 is the next COD, then i'd expect it to be the last COD to have a sales range similar to MW2 and Black Ops, though critical reception will be not be up to par. Thus, the COD in 2012 will sell maybe like WaW range. BUT if Activision does decide to charge subscription for multiplayer(i dont think it will happen) then we will see a decline in sells much faster.

Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero never sold 20 Million units in 6 Months, or 10 Million units in 2 weeks.

If Call of Duty will die, then so will Mario.

I cannot disagree more. Battlefield is an excellent series that is so much better than CoD.

I think this was the peak year of Call of Duty, the next game will suffer because of the rebuild of the developer (remember all the infinity ward fiasco) and some people will begging to tire of it, it will not fall to small numbers, but will sale less than previous years, then Activision will release a spin off and all will go downwards from that point on.

In 2012 we will see the new first console (microsofts?, nintendo?) and if there is a new game that can catch the FPS audience, it can be the final stroke to CoD, the games will still sell huge numbers like Madden around 4-5 millions, but not the insane 20 millions that we are seeing this days.

prob this ^^

it has worked for nintendo for decades now, if nintendo can i can't see why i  activision can't do the same

I'd think CoD is more like GTA last gen. Next gen starts, and (relative) KABOOM!

I could be wrong though and it could be a constant seller like Nintendo franchises, though I doubt it.

So true. I've gotten my $60 worth out of BO already and its just been 1 month.