Gamespot today reported that Pacific Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson changed his previous estimate of 10 million copies to over 12 million copies of Black Ops to be sold this coming holiday season. He stated that the current pre-order sales are out pacing those of the other popular Call of Duty game Modern Warfare 2 produced last year around the same time. While this is true Wilson also believes that Black Ops will not out sell Modern Warfare 2 due to “due to competition, weaker marketing, and the Infinity Ward situation”.
For those of you that don’t know about the Infinity Ward situation it goes something like this… Infinity Ward, the studio that created the Call of Duty series and developed Modern Warfare 2, has been a center of turmoil within Activision this year. The problems surfaced with the March firings of cofounders Jason West and Vince Zampella. After their termination, the pair sued the company, in which the company sued back, claiming they had been plotting to start a new studio with chief Activision rival Electronic Arts. This in fact could of been true because less than two weeks later Jason West and Vince Zampella started up a studio named Respawn Entertainment.
Read the full Gamespot article here
Will this hurt Black Ops though? Hard to say, but it does appear that Black Ops has a bit more competition this year with Medal of Honor coming out a month prior. As for me… I am planning on owning both Medal of Honor and Black Ops. I am really hoping that Black Ops fixes a lot of the issues that came with Modern Warfare as far as the online mode goes. But only time will tell.
