“Warn the shareholders,” hummed Bobby Kotick glumly, a soggy biscuit dropping emotively into his morning joe. “Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare was only the best-selling retail game of the year.”
So expectations are somewhat skewed in the tightly-corridored arena of Call of Duty sales. But a US stat-tracking company have it that Advanced Warfare has sold 27% fewer copies in the country than Call of Duty: Ghosts did last year.
Early Advanced Warfare sales in the UK outstripped Wolfenstein, Titanfall and Destiny combined. Activision were certainly “very happy” with Call of Duty figures a month ago, and sales jumped 110% in Black Friday week. But over in the US, that 27% figure has emerged – and analysts aren’t expecting a upsurge for Christmas.
The numbers come from NPD, and it’s worth remembering that the firm don’t include international or digital sales – the latter of which are only likely to have increased since last year.
“In only its first month of release, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is already the number one top-selling console game of the year through November in the US overall,” announced Activision at the weekend.
It’s not clear how it’s fared on PC – but even last year, Call of Duty: Ghosts multiplayer was drawing in about half the players of Black Ops.
What did you make of Sledgehammer’s first CoD? Do you think Activision need to give their releases a little more space, or more Spacey?