In each of the past four years, Activision has followed Call of Duty‘s release date with a triumphal announcement that the latest edition of the game was “the biggest entertainment launch” of the year or in history, comparing it to blockbuster movie franchises since there was no other game to come close. They didn’t say that this time.
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, in a statement, settled for calling Call of Duty “by far the largest console franchise of this generation”, which it probably is. As far as what might be the biggest entertainment launch of the year, Grand Theft Auto V is a good guess.
GTA‘s publisher boasted of worldwide sales surpassing $US1 billion “during its first three days on sale,” calling that figure an estimate. Call of Duty also brags of a $US1 billion figure but it’s not as grand; it’s $US1 billion in inventory “sold in” to retailers, which only means that stores worldwide ordered up $US1 billion worth of product from the publisher. That’s not $US1 billion paid by customers.
Last year, Activision raked in an estimated $US500 million in first-day sales — still a record above other Call of Duty launches garnering between $US300 and $US400 million on day one. The latest statement didn’t estimate what day one sales for Ghosts were.
The other angle could be that Call of Duty: Ghosts’ launch is split by the new console launches coming, even if it’s a week (or two) from Friday. People may be waiting for that before slapping down the $US60 on CoD. So Activision might come back to us after November 22 to say, hey, it was the biggest entertainment launch of the year. Or in history. Or both.
Comments
40 responses to “Call Of Duty: Ghosts Isn’t The Year’s Biggest Entertainment Launch”
Real shame even though I like both games, CoD Ghosts is a perfect entry into the series the multiplayer is solid and the campaign feels new and different
You’re kidding right? The PC version is the most pathetic port of the console I’ve ever seen. No dedicated servers for MP. Frame stuttering on A-grade rigs. A campaign that I couldn’t play for more than 15 minutes due to FOV being hard set to 65 degrees (thanks for the motion sickness Activison). No mod tools. Lean triggered by ADS? Are you serious? What’s wrong with the [Q] and [E] keys being used to lean? Oh that’s right, it would require some actual coding by you monkeys.
IW have always made the shittiest console ports, and Treyarch seem to have started down that path as well.
Farewell Call of Duty, enjoy your death on the console. I thought BF4 was average, but you’ve taken the cake once again Activision.
I dunno, I know COD is huge, but GTA only comes along once every 5 years or so, and brings with it a giant ground swell of anticipation and expectation… which brings along with it mega-sales of an astronomical amount. I’ll be surprised if this COD beats GTA V honestly.
I’ll be surprised if Ghosts beats Black Ops 2, honestly. I’m just not feeling the buzz of this release that normally comes from a CoD release.
It’s getting a lot of negative buzz, though my wife hates game critics so much she’s tempted to buy Ghosts out of spite, even though we were both disappointed with MW3 and haven’t bothered with either of the Blacks Ops titles.
Can’t speak for Black Ops 1 as I never bought it, but Black Ops 2 is probably my favourite of them so far, I definitely prefer it over MW3. I’m still waiting for my copy of Ghosts; I wasn’t really feeling the buzz either plus I’m still playing GTA V and just bought WWE 2K14 so I just ordered it online, I’m in no rush to get it.
black ops 1 is the best version since MW1, none of the rest f the games have come even close.
I’ll say again, Blops 2 was highly underrated, for it’s single player at least. So much replayability and so many things to unlock, it reminded me of Goldeneye.
Yeah agreed – Blops 1 and 2 were fantastic games, MW3 was very meh… but I had fun with the survival mode in it with friends.
I still feel like this cod wont feel fully released until it’s out on the new consoles.
Like everyone else has been saying all these games that are going to go from Xbox360->Xbox One and PS3->PS4 feel like betas.
I would say that Ghosts is the opposite of MW3 so don’t let that go against any judgement on this even though its IW. (I think most people from IW quit after MW3 anyway? Either way it shows)
I’ll be surprised if anything beats GTA V honestly… (Other than the next GTA but that will be years away.)
I was amazed when I saw the price on steam a few days ago on the featured page, $45…
… Clicked on the link to find that the $45 advertised price is for the upgrade to the “Hardened Edition” and the base game is still typical Activision markup of $89.99.
Out of curiosity, does any Australian actually pay the steam rip off price?
Yeah that price was extremely misleading. I remember seeing it and being like “Oh shit it’s not $99 this launch? Cool I think I might… oh.”
I wonder that too. I always use greenmangaming or cjs but there always seems to be expensive games on steam in the top selling. So some crazy people out there must be buying it.
Unfortunately some people do…the general public will just pay jacked up steam price or the over-inflated EB Games price (for the boxed copy) not just for COD but for any game
U mean the rrp.
Eb only makes 15-20% profit at that price.
How are they suppose to make money If there selling games below cost?
What exactly does one get for this extra 45 in this ‘hardened edition’?
you get all the future DLC’s
I’m guessing that 1bn worth of inventory includes PS4 and XB1 stock, GTA avoided the fence sitters by avoiding next gen.
Even if they get 1/2 of the sales of Black Ops 2 it will still be a huge hit. The game is crap though. First time I’ve said that about a COD game.
From what I’ve heard, Ghosts shits on BO2 with fixed quick scoping and bullet registries.
But that could be day one excitement however.
I never used snipers that much so I don’t really know. Only way to get kills is with assasult rifles. Shotguns and sub machine guns do nothing.
Speak for yourself. I played Black Ops 2 multiplayer for the first time last night and the basic shotgun is the only weapon I’m any good with.
Yeah I meant in Ghosts shotguns do nothing
Ah. Fair ’nuff.
I thought you couldnt quickscope in the treyarch games but could in the infinity ward ones? would explain why its ‘fixed’
When BlOps1 first came out, Treyarch added a massive amount of sway to the sniper when initially aiming it, so you can’t hit shit for about three seconds. I hardly ever sniped in CoD anyway and I never quickscoped, but that adjustment made sniper rifles utterly worthless, especially on the abundant closed-in, tiny maps. I played BlOps for about 2 days and decided it wasn’t for me.
I hear they tweked it later and it was further improved in BlOps2, but it was too little, too late for me.
ah right, I never sniped in COD games so wasnt an issue, but enjoy assault sniper in BF, bolt action with ACOG
Didn’t stop me getting killed by snipers repeatedly on codblopsII last night!
It’s been a problem for all versions.
IW and Treyarch are using the same code base for their developments.
no way! Quick scoping is alive and well. it feels like MW3 so lazy gun firing, the killstreaks suck, the levelloution is a good addition. but its no different from other Infinity ward releases!. Black ops 2 shits all over it in terms of playability. the speed of the action ect. treyarc have won. if they do a blops3 using this new engine hopefully they make use of it cause IW havent
In that case it should be no surprise my source preferred MW3 to BO2 in MP.
For the brief amount of time I’ve played any of them I never noticed a difference. I preferred World at War as my overall favourite
Yeah it’s a weird beast this time around. Hit detection and gun mechanics are top notch, but the maps are dogshit in my opinion. Too big, too cluttered. Makes shotguns, subs and even pistols worthless on all but 1-2 maps.
If I want huge maps and no run n gun gameplay I’ll play Battlefield. Despite the taunts of the internet community badmouthing COD’s arcadey gameplay, it’s what I and many of us loved about the franchise.
At least Extinction is fun, find it more enjoyable than zombies.
You should give Domination mode in BF4 a go, plenty of running and gunning, and everyone crying hacks when they die. From my 10hrs of Black Ops MP thats what it seemed to be all about, oh and camping a doorway with a shotgun.
Isn’t this the franchise (excluding WoW) that pretty much props up Activision?
I wonder what they’ll do once it stops bringing in the revenue they need?
I’d proboly buy it on steam for $60.
I purchased COD:G at g2play.net for $69
No way Id pay full price for this. Now, the 30gb download to endure.
I’m pretty sure the biggest entertainment release this year might be a hardware launch. At least if you include all associated sales.
Yup , yup, yup
I own a retail store and can have spoken directly with EB JB hifi Target and Bigw in my shopping centre and we’ve all acknowledged that the sales of this release has been exceptionally poor. Jb have enough release day stock to last until Xmas. EB did a midnight launch and had 40 pickups, where last year we both did midnight launches with 100’s of pickups. There are still boxes of unopened stock in the sound bar at Target and Bigw is similar.
I think the next gen consoles have certainly eaten into release day sales but I also feel that gamers are getting over the franchise that is Call of Duty.