Cowen and Company’s analysts had some interesting thoughts on Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, due to release on November 4th. Based on Amazon pre-order data, the Sledgehammer Games-developed title is projected to sell 40 percent less than Ghosts and 70 percent less than Black Ops 2.
“Advanced Warfare is now pacing almost 40 per cent behind last year’s Ghosts (vs. 50 per cent last week) and almost 70 per cent behind 2012′s Black Ops 2 (vs. 80 per cent last week). We continue to believe CoD will be down meaningfully vs. last year. With the franchise facing two consecutive significant year on year declines in sales, we think it is prudent to assume it has peaked.”
Keep in mind that it’s still pegged to sell more than Destiny, which sold $500 million into retailers on day one. Analysts also believed that the pre-order data isn’t as accurate a measure as before, pointing to Watch Dogs and Destiny as recent cases. Regardless, it is Call of Duty. We’ll know for sure just how well it performs within the first few days of its release.