Call of Duty sales slow down as casual buyers find entertainment elsewhere

theprof00

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theprof00 on 18 April 2012

I always said CoD was for casuals.

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Pineapple on 18 April 2012

RolStoppable said:

Pineapple said:

Let's just point out that at this point, after 22 weeks on the market, the Ps360 versions of MW3 have sold 25.38 million. After 22 weeks, Black Ops had sold 22.05 million. MW2 had sold 18.29 million.

In other words, MW3 is doing quite a bit better than Black Ops and MW2 had at this point. In fact, the Ps360 versions of the two previous ones never even reached 25 million, so MW3 has already sold more than any previous installment in the series. Which means that it's the best selling retail game ever, excluding a dozen or so Nintendo games and possibly World of Warcraft.

Call of Duty is doing better than it ever has before.

These analysts are talking solely about the US market though. CoD obviously hit it big in the USA first with other countries to follow, so CoD declining in the USA could be followed by a decline in other countries in the future (right now these other countries are still showing growth though).

4.2 % behind in LTD sales, >50 % down year over year in March. Logically, MW3 will fall further behind in the coming months and at a rather fast rate.

But anyway, let's suppose MW3 sells 10 % less than BO lifetime in the USA, it's still not a damning figure. Merely a warning to Activision that they need to put effort into and not take their success for granted, because otherwise the decline might extend to other countries.

It's worth noting that the overall software sales in the US have dropped quite heftily too, though. A quick check at VGChartz numbers says that in from the start of the year to mid-April there were sold 70 million pieces of software last year, and 50 million this year. In other words, a drop of 2/7ths, or 28.5%.

The US drop of Call of Duty (if there even is one, VGChartz suggests there isn't a drop at all, even in America) is far smaller than the overall drop for US software.

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theprof00 on 18 April 2012

Pineapple said:

RolStoppable said:

Pineapple said:

Let's just point out that at this point, after 22 weeks on the market, the Ps360 versions of MW3 have sold 25.38 million. After 22 weeks, Black Ops had sold 22.05 million. MW2 had sold 18.29 million.

In other words, MW3 is doing quite a bit better than Black Ops and MW2 had at this point. In fact, the Ps360 versions of the two previous ones never even reached 25 million, so MW3 has already sold more than any previous installment in the series. Which means that it's the best selling retail game ever, excluding a dozen or so Nintendo games and possibly World of Warcraft.

Call of Duty is doing better than it ever has before.

These analysts are talking solely about the US market though. CoD obviously hit it big in the USA first with other countries to follow, so CoD declining in the USA could be followed by a decline in other countries in the future (right now these other countries are still showing growth though).

4.2 % behind in LTD sales, >50 % down year over year in March. Logically, MW3 will fall further behind in the coming months and at a rather fast rate.

But anyway, let's suppose MW3 sells 10 % less than BO lifetime in the USA, it's still not a damning figure. Merely a warning to Activision that they need to put effort into and not take their success for granted, because otherwise the decline might extend to other countries.

It's worth noting that the overall software sales in the US have dropped quite heftily too, though. A quick check at VGChartz numbers says that in from the start of the year to mid-April there were sold 70 million pieces of software last year, and 50 million this year. In other words, a drop of 2/7ths, or 28.5%.

The US drop of Call of Duty (if there even is one, VGChartz suggests there isn't a drop at all, even in America) is far smaller than the overall drop for US software.

None of these figures, it should be mentioned, include digital sales, which is on the rise in a big way.

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NintendoPie on 18 April 2012

Seriously...? I doubt that just wait, that is all you've got to do. They come back sooner or later, they'll all go back and buy their 60$ game that was the same as the last one.

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crissindahouse on 18 April 2012

i would really love to see pc sales compared to the last cods. i think as older this gen is, as more people will have a pc with which they can play these games as well. as example the first year of 360, i didn't have a pc to play most games because i wasn't so much in pc gaming to buy a decent gpu but nowadays, you only need an old gpu to play the newest games available on pc and console. if you buy a new pc nowadays you can run cod even without looking for a good gpu, if you bought a new pc in 2006 you couldn't automatically play the games which came out for pc and console without looking for a good gpu. and pc games cost less, so why not buy the pc version if you can play it?

next point is, many lost a little bit of their interest in this gen. i am one of those and some of my friends sold their consoles because they have the same problem. we are all waiting for the next gen and we will all buy the new consoles from day one but i really lost a little bit of fun with my consoles. that's one of the reasons i didn't buy mw3. i won mw3 in an online advent calender and sold it without playing but two years ago i would have played it.