Every year we go through the same ole song and dance on VGC. New CoD gets announced, many of us collectively sigh, remark on how the franchise is tired and out of good ideas. And then it proceeds to dominate sales for the holiday season.

While I think CoD will still sell big - I have an inclination that this will be the year CoD finally is no longer #1 and that instead, Pokemon Sun/Moon will be the biggest selling game of the holiday.

I think demand for Call of Duty : Infinite Warfare will be softened for the following reasons:

- BO3 was massively bundled for months on the PS4. Most casuals who buy a CoD every other year and have gotten this bundle will go for something else this holiday

-That something else being the likes of Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2. On X1 those titles will be really big as well. Additionally, Microsoft will extensively promote Gears of War 4 as the definitive combatshooter multiplayer experience of the year.  Overwatch and Doom continue legging out over the year. Overall, CoD's market is really competitive this year.

-And this time most of everyone else is convinced: CoD is tired and out of good ideas. 

-Overall, CoD's sales dip to around 15-16 million lifetime

And I think Pokemon Sun/Moon will overtake CoD as the biggest selling game of the holiday for these reasons

-The overall size of the 3DS userbase isn't THAT far off from the combined userbase of the PS4 and X1 combined. There's enough potential buyers out there to make it happen

-Pokemon Go obviously boosting overall interest in the series, particularly in lapsed fans of kinds. Retailers will want to capitalize on the Pokemon bandwagon by putting the 3DS and Pokemon games in general front and center in their holiday offerings.

-The 3DS goes cheap and will be even cheaper by Black Friday. HW sales stay pretty competitive, and even ahead of X1.

-Pokemon Sun/Moon makes for a great value proposition for the legions Pokemon Go fans that will spend their winter indoors

-I think some kind of Pokemon Go integration with Sun/Moon is in the works, making it a more appealing Pokemon title than others

-As Pokemon Company's marquee title for the 20th anniversary year, it's likely a really high quality Pokemon game. There will be a case to be made for it being the best 3DS game period.

-For Nintendo fans, the WiiU holiday is especially weak - meaning a greater number will drift towards buying 3DS games, Pokemon Sun/Moon being the #1 most likely game they'll go for

-Overall, Sun/Moon improves upon X/Ys sales performance - selling near 17-18 million lifetime

And in general, as the world seems particularly grim with the US Presidential Election underway, people want more colorful, light-hearted experiences in gaming. Pokemon obviously does a better job of providing that than CoD.

Update 11/21/16

Figured I'd give this old thread a bump. Call of Duty doesn't have a holiday bundle and the franchise appears to have finally shrunk back in the way I predicted in . Methinks Sun/Moon's aggressive ship numbers makes this look more and more likely - especially if a Switch version arrives later on too.

I can see Sun/Moon outselling Infinite Warfare on PS4 if it doesn't get bundled like BO3 did, but if it does get bundled I think the sales will be close to equal. Sun/Moon will easily outsell Infinite Warfare on XBOne though. Either way though, I don't see Sun/Moon outselling Infinite Warfare with combined sales of PS4 and XBOne under any situation.

You think Call of Duty will be down 50% from the last entry?

If the downloads of Pokémon GO reach 50/60M downloads by the end of August I could see this happening. It's very unlikely, but hey, it's also the first Pokémon game to be translated in chinese, that's 1.4B new potential buyers.

Nintendo UK has already reported a near 150% increase in Pokemon game sales and merchandise. Looking across Amazon, Pokemon titles and the 3DS are doing better than usual for this time of year. Honestly, not that big a boost in real numbers at this point.

...But Pokemon Go really hasn't hit its biggest scale yet. It's probably between 20- 40 million downloads now, but it's practically guaranteed to hit 1 billion downloads in it's future at some point the way other mobile franchises have. We're easily talking about the franchise's biggest fanbase expansion since it debuted in the first place - probably even bigger. Even if a very, very small percent of those people are compelled to buy the 3DS and Pokemon Sun/Moon, it results in a pretty hefty increase in sales for the 3DS and this pokemon game in particular.

This whole thing is pretty unprecedented. How often has a mobile game really acted as a lead-in for a console game? Fallout Shelter maybe? Other than that - I got nothing.  It really hasn't been attempted. But I think that's the jist of Nintendo's strategy now. It's the same reasoning to also put Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem on mobile too. The goal isn't to replace the console titles, it's to pave a wider path for people to get interest in console titles. I think it works because I don't think the mobile game really diminishes the console game's value to those who bought the console game series repeatedly in the past.

if the 2ds reaches 75 dollars on black Friday(or 100 with the games) I expect at least 15 million units.

Yes. Similar kind of decline Assassin's Creed has experienced.

But Syndicate followed Unity which poor quality at launch really hurted the franchise whereas Black Ops 3 brought back many people to the series after lower sales from Ghost and Advanced Warfare. I don't see any way Infinite Warfare sells below 20m honestly especially with how good it actually looks and with the inclusion of CoD4 Remastered.

2DS is already just $80 now - with Mario Kart 7 bundled. 2DS could realistically sell for only $50-60 during Black Friday.

I think we'll see a $150 N3DS bundled with Pokemon at Black Friday. Generally N3DS sits at a $100 price differential from the 2DS.

I think Nintendo has a really heartfelt mission right now to prove to the world that dedicated handheld gaming is still a good value proposition. That matters infinitely more to them than doing anything stimulating with the WiiU.

Except Call of Duty hasn't release an almost unplayable, broken game yet like Assassin's Creed Unity was.