Call of Duty is one of the best selling franchises of all time, no two ways about it. The last installment in the series, Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2 set records in terms of how many copies of the game were pre-ordered, and how many were bought after release. Leaping off of this momentum, Activision was hopeful that their newest installment in the series, Call Of Duty: Ghosts, would be able to bring with it some Black Ops 2 clout.
Unfortunately, Actvision’s consumer research department reports that this isn’t the case, and they blame the upcoming transition into new console territory. Eric Hirshberg, Activision’s publishing CEO was quoted, “Our quantitative consumer research indicates that hesitation amongst past COD pre-orderers is primarily due to not knowing which platform they will be playing on, which is natural at this time in the console transition”
Hirshberg did however point out that despite pre-orders not living up to those of Black Ops 2, Ghost pre-orders are actually more than double those of Call Of Duty: Black Ops, which was the last time the series introduced a new “sub-brand.”
Additionally, reports are that despite the relative lack of game pre-orders, Call Of Duty DLC and players paying per month are both higher than in previous years.
So it seems that while the transitional period may affect the initial sales of Call Of Duty: Ghosts, the franchise is far from being in any sort of danger.
Source: Gameskinny