It seems that the Call of Duty franchise is finally starting to lose steam, at least pre-order wise.
Cowen and Company analyst Doug Cruetz notes that pre-order sales for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is barely 50 percent that of Call of Duty: Ghosts, and about 80 percent behind 2012’s Black Ops II (via VentureBeat).
“We believe that the preorders [for Call of Duty] need to accelerate significantly over the next few weeks,” Cruetz writes.
“Or else the evidence for meaningfully weaker performance by Advanced Warfare vs. Ghosts will, in our opinion, become too strong to rationalize.”
Still, a “poor performing” Advanced Warfare is still expected to ship 17 millions copies, according to Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia. In comparison, Ghosts shipped 20 million copies.
Bhatia notes that the 15 percent decline in sales is projected because Ghosts could have made gamers more skeptical of Advanced Warfare, as well as gamers looking to transition from current-gen consoles (PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360) to next-gen consoles (PlayStation 4 and Xbox One).
As for pre-order sales, Cruetz believes that Activision did Sledgehammer Games no favors with the launch of Destiny.
Indeed, gamers might be too busy collecting loot and farming for Legendary engrams to be bothered with pre-ordering Advanced Warfare and making the switch from an MMO first-person shooter to a more “classic” first-person shooter.
Things will get worse for Sledgehammer post-launch because other heavy weight titles such as Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Far Cry 4, Grand Theft Auto 5, Assassin’s Creed Rogue and Unity, and Dragon Age: Inquisition are all set for release.
“With light competition pre-release and heavy competition post-release, we think a slow start for CoD could be difficult to overcome,” Cruetz concludes.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is set for a November 4 release on the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and the PC.
