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Any new Call of Duty game is almost assured to sell incredibly well due to the high quality of the long running series. In fact, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has even confirmed that every entry in the series has outperformed the last. While that isn’t difficult to imagine, the fact that preorders for Call of Duty: Black Ops are outpacing those for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 during the same time period is still impressive. However, preorders are only part of the battle Black Ops will be facing if it hopes to unseat Modern Warfare 2’s sales.  According to Gamespot, Pacific Crest analyst Evan Wilson thinks that even with these high preorder numbers, Black Ops will fail to outsell Modern Warfare 2 in the end. Wilson singles out “competition, weaker marketing, and the Infinity Ward situation” as reasons why sales expectations for Black Ops are at 12 million, up from the 10 million initially expected but down from the 16 million achieved by Modern Warfare 2. Only time will tell if Black Ops can continue the Call of Duty one upping sales trend, or if it will be unable to outshine its predecessor. |