I thought with all bad press and all the trash talking from BF3 folks to fanboys that MW3 wouldn't be able to match Black Ops sales.  Maybe MW3 won't have the legs as Black Ops.  But with the substantially larger 1st week sales of MW3, MW3 will likely outsell Black Ops.  Everywhere online from metacritic user scores to gaming website message boards, you would think all the trash talking would affect MW3 sales.  But the general American Wal-Mart shoppers obviously don't care what the fanboys say.  It really goes to show how the gaming online message board community is a very, very vocal minority and has virtually no influence on the general public.

As much as how I like BF3 more than MW3, I don't think BF3 will sell 1:2 as EA predicted.

The next big question: how would the next COD game fare?  I'll bet anyone that COD Black Ops 2 or the next COD whatever will STILL use same engine without any significant improvements. 

When Black Ops came out I would have said the COD after MW3 most likely wouldn't sell more than MW3...however now I'm not so sure about that.

Unless they royally screw up I think the next COD after MW3 will probably sell even more than MW3 or at least sell similar to it.

The Halo fanboy in me wants to say that it has tough competition with Halo 4 coming out next year but at this point Halo is an afterthought to most people compared to COD.

CoD is too much of a cultural phenomenon at this point, even more so then just a hardcore gamer's game. IMO, the sales won't slow down for at least the next 2 games.

The next COD? Hmm, that's a tough one, it could very well release at the end of the current generation's lifecycle and in the middle of the inevitable sales halt that will ensure, hardware-wise.
I'm going to say that it won't, in fact; I think the next COD will sell 25-30% less overall for the aforementioned reason teamed with the fact that they need to make a new "story" and start a new saga and it will be a Treyarch title.

Treyarch got a story going themselves - the one in Black Ops so they'll most likely carry on from that if they're allowed - this time of course with new characters and a new diabolical end of the world scheme by some random Russian - Cold War after all. But I've heard a rumour they're not allowed to go back into modern warfare or second world war(Not sure if true).

However, I think that the next COD will likely outsell MW3 or be just about even.

yes it will :P

Every game keeps surprising me with sales, so even if the next COD looks plausible to sell less than MW3, there's a good chance it will keep capitalizing even further with each game. I didn't expect Black Ops to beat MW2, but it did, so anything is possible at this point.

Still astounding that considering that COD has been the same game for the last 5 years, buyer's fatigue hasn't set in. Like guitar hero or tony hawk or like other activision franchises.....

lol even with a 50% drop in sales it will likley beat every game next year apart from GTA5.

I suppose that is why they are doing the CoD elite.  To suck people in for a lifetime of countless CoD.