Activision Blizzard may not be having the best of sales for its Call of Duty: Ghosts as reports indicate that the launch week sales, barring the day one sales, are down by 50 percent as compared to what Call of Duty: Black Ops II managed in week 1.
MCV claims through its retail sources that UK launch week sales are “50 per cent lower than Call of Duty: Black Ops II.” The game did manage to top the All Formats All Prices UK Video Game Chart, but just managed to bag the third position in biggest launches of 2013 behind GTA 5 and FIFA 14 and this is despite the fact that the Activision shipped Ghosts copies to retailers equaling $1 billion on day one itself.
However, the sales figures are not that bad when compared to sales figures of other titles. Battlefield 4 sales saw a decline of around 69 per cent over its predecessor Battlefield 3, while Assassin’s Creed IV sales have registered a decline of 60 per cent over Assassin’s Creed III. FIFA 14 is an exception with sales down just 24 percent as compared to FIFA 13.
Call of Duty: Ghosts is a launch title for both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 and the decline in sales may partly be attributed to the impending launch of both these consoles. It is fairly early to predict on the success or failure of the title and sales figures post-Christmas shopping season would provide more accurate picture.
1 Billion in sales to retail is not the same thing as 1 billion in retail sales. What the first means is that 1 billion worth of merchandise was sold to stores like Walmart and Target in expectation of big sales figures on launch day. This does NOT mean that consumers actually PAID over 1 billion for CoD Ghosts on launch day. Activision has yet to release what their actual launch day sales figures were, but have said that the number is lower than previous titles. The reason they keep touting the 1 billion number is twofold. A.) To try to drive consumer sales (If everyone else has it, you should too!) and B.) To maintain consumer perception of the CoD brand (The most popular game ever!)
Still the number one game being played online regardless.