MP1st

Activision Publishing CEO, Eric Hirshberg, explains why Modern Warfare 3 sales in January were significantly lower than Black Ops’ in the same month last year.

During January 2010, Blacks Ops sold 750,000 copies according to NPD figures. However, Modern Warfare 3 managed to only move 386,000 units, as reported by Gaming Bolt. This decline suggests that the franchise, which has over 40 million monthly players, might have hit its peak. When questioned regarding the aforementioned numbers, Eric Hirshberg stated, in an interview withGamesIndustry.biz, “I think they moved forward. We broke the record for the biggest day and the biggest first five days and the biggest first 16 days. That came as a result of us putting together a very effective pre-sale programme and a very effective launch. Part of that was we drew more buyers forward in the process which is a good thing because we’re convincing more people to buy it, some of them sight-unseen based on the past performance of the strength and fun of the franchise, and some of them very early as it comes out closest to launch. When you have such a successful pre-order programme and such a successful launch week I don’t think it’s surprising that the shape of the curve after that looks a little different than the year before.”

Hirshberg also mentioned that the competition Modem Warfare 3 faced during the holidays was stiff. He stated, “I would also say there was a lot of great competition in the fourth quarter, there was a lot of must have games that launched right around the same time, and there was also a lot of aggressive pricing activity, and those were two contributions as well.”

Hirshberg elaborated on Activision’s pricing model for Call of Duty titles. As you might have noticed, Call of Duty titles tend to retain their value longer than other games. Eric Hirshberg explained “That takes a stomach of steel because we haven’t really changed our pricing patterns to match or respond to a lot of the more aggressive stuff that’s going on elsewhere in the industry. But I believe in the value of games, there’s no other form of entertainment that delivers hundreds of hours of entertainment. They’re very costly to make, they’re very risky propositions and holding strong on the value they deliver is really important.”

http://mp1st.com/2012/02/13/activision-responds-to-modern-warfare-3-weak-january-npd-numbers/

"When you have such a successful pre-order programme and such a successful launch week I don’t think it’s surprising that the shape of the curve after that looks a little different than the year before."

I mean there's not much to add to what he said. It's a trend that is more easily observed in the Japanese market where strongly hyped games have phenomenal first weeks but die-off very quickly after launch. It's far more profitable that way.

To be honest, MW3 has already outsold Black ops pretty much is silly.

Its like movies and thier box office. For example the 2nd Transformers film did not sustain as long as the first Transformer movie however it opened much larger and made way more money

I thought he might credit Black Ops with actually having a single player campaign with a plot and creative multi-player maps. For me, it is the better game. As for pricing policies, whatever the hell that means, I found this quite revealing:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3  $39.99

Call of Duty: Black Ops  $45.98

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim  $59.96

Cod isnt dying, its just not selling as much now.

More profitable than Nintendo titles that sell 20+ million with little to no price cut throughout many years?

There are some exceptions but the concept stays the same.

Scrooge McDuck swimming in his vault of money would also be a proper response.

LOLOL that's rich.

Interesting. What are those numbers, the SRP during the holiday season, or for January, or what (if you don't mind me asking)?