Activision publishing CEO Mike Griffith has admitted that the firm isn't expecting this year's Treyarch-developed Call Of Duty 7 to eclipse sales of Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare 2.
But before you IW lovers get too high and mighty, Activision's caution has nothing to do with the game's developer: It's because the firm expects a tougher set of rival titles will hit shelves in the lead up to Christmas this year.
Modern Warfare 2's dominance of the market is widely seen as the main reason some publishers postponed the release of triple-A releases from Christmas 2009 to the first quarter of this year.
"We've consistsently grown the Call Of Duty franchise revenues year-on-year for the past seven years. We expect to continue our stategy of annualising this franchise opportuntiy. At the same time, we recognise that Modern Wardfare 2 was an unprecedented success, driven in part by the game quality, our retail and marketing execution, and by the relatively friendly competitive environment [at Christmas].
"We expect to have a more difficult competitive environment this year, and therefore we've not planned on the same level of success [with 2010's CoD title] as we enjoyed in 2009. That said, we're still bullish on this year's title, and we do see upside potential if we execute well by engaging the much larger set of consumers who were introduced to the Call Of Duty franchise in 2009."
I wonder where it'll be set. I guess they haven't really touched Vietnam.. that might be okay (considering they can fudge the terrain mapping by covering it with a load of trees!)
Perhaps it'll be back to good ol' WWII, though? Goodness, I hope not. With Ghost Recon going all Future Soldier, maybe CoD will follow suit?
Hmmm, Vietman, WW3, Cold War. Or perhaps something on a smaller scale.. Spec-Ops, or something. Call of Duty: Infiltration! Call of Duty: Camoflaugelol. Call of Duty: Operation Resolute Desert Storm Winter Fox!""!
Wont this game be done by Treyarch? So I doubt it will be modern warfare, Vietnam seems likely, leave the modern stuff to Infinity Ward. Personally I hate those WWII games, outdated and not much fun in multiplayer, I like up to date weaponry.
Yeah it may not sell as well as MW2 but most of us know this years game will be the better game.
To be honest it wouldn't take much to beat MW2 as a game. Trouble is, even after that lacklustre effort, I still don't think Treyarch will make the better game.
I'm pretty much done with Call of Duty now. CoD4 was awesome, but WaW and MW2 were throwaway garbage I got bored of within a couple weeks (the former didn't even last that long). Still, no doubt Joe Public will make it number one again, presumably until another gaudy, in your face NFS comes along.
For me personally, this will be way, waaaaaaay down the list of games deserving of my hard earned come the end of the year.
Yeah it may not sell as well as MW2 but most of us know this years game will be the better game.
To be honest it wouldn't take much to beat MW2 as a game. Trouble is, even after that lacklustre effort, I still don't think Treyarch will make the better game.
I'm pretty much done with Call of Duty now. CoD4 was awesome, but WaW and MW2 were throwaway garbage I got bored of within a couple weeks (the former didn't even last that long). Still, no doubt Joe Public will make it number one again, presumably until another gaudy, in your face NFS comes along.
For me personally, this will be way, waaaaaaay down the list of games deserving of my hard earned come the end of the year.
Your loss then I spent months on WAW and barely a week on MW2, Treyarch have a thumbs up from me and im defo getting the next one.
Got to agree with stonecold there. Once all the elevator hacks and holes in the maps were plugged, WAW was a great COD game. I still play it now despite very few people playing it now on PSN. Whereas with MW2 I'm nowhere near prestige yet. I just cant get into it. I'll probably give next years a miss. I cant see where the multiplayer could go other than add a few perks and new locales. It really bugs me that mw2 seems to pick me as the host despite my pathetic 1Mb connection. I'm never host on WAW.
sigh i'm guessing that this is going to be more suited to xbox and ps3 rather than pc its really annoying in games that were pc first and now the console is taking away teh bits that made me want to buy it 4 pc instead of an xbox dedicated servers r gone massive servers in bc2 prone gone bcoz of the fact that theres not enough buttons on the controler or they jsut got lazy
id just settle for a add on for the story and 10 new mw2 maps as i dont really wanna play an old war game and they have already said its not gonna do as well if a company doesn't believe in there own product how can i ?
Interesting seeing that people are starting to believe Treyarch make the better games. I agree, they take what IW create and perfect it. COD 7 should be ace. Although with Medal of Honor and Ghost Recon out also, the choice will be tough.
Interesting seeing that people are starting to believe Treyarch make the better games. I agree, they take what IW create and perfect it. COD 7 should be ace. Although with Medal of Honor and Ghost Recon out also, the choice will be tough.
I agree that other games will be more interesting to me such as Medal of Honour this year but I wouldn't agree about treyarch perfecting infinity wards games. Infinity Ward made a game that's suited to a modern environment with modern weaponry and Treyarch take that formula and put it in a World War 2 setting with WW2 weapons and I don't think the game play suits it.
However with Treyarch confirming that CoD7 will be set during 'nam hopefully it shouldn't be such a rough transition. Needless to say I will buy CoD7 because no matter what anyone says I actually like the single player campaigns on CoD but I doubt the multiplayer will get so much attention from me.
Whereas with MW2 I'm nowhere near prestige yet. I just cant get into it.
Your not that guy from that crazy youtube MW2 rant video are you???
I did like WaW and going back to that more simple type of play would be nice. Problem I have is the same problem I have with skate 1,2. Its basically a yearly update I dont need....
MW2 was an interesting distraction for a few weeks. Until the glitching, cheating and overly aggressive players finally p**sed me off so much I traded it.
I'm not getting suckered this year, there's more than enough FPS action coming out to pick from. BBC2, AvP, Brink and Halo Reach for me are the far better prospects.
Your loss then I spent months on WAW and barely a week on MW2, Treyarch have a thumbs up from me and im defo getting the next one.
Surely it's only a 'loss' if I am missing out on something though? As I played through WaW, and it sucked balls IMO, I'm not really too worried about moving swiftly on to something more worthy of my time. I don't like tomato, so if someone offered me a tomato I would say thanks but no, is that my loss? No, 'cos they taste like crap.
But hey, one man's drink is another man's poison n' all that, so I hope Treyarch deliver a solid title for all those who are looking forward to it. Vietnam could be an interesting setting and they have enough experience to make the most of it. Hope they avoid the hackneyed mission structure of WaW though.
How do treyarch make the better games? They are a copy of what infinity ward do and yet they still manage to f**k it up.
In my opinion WaW was a much better game that MW2. In fact only last week I took MW2 back to Game and traded it in for a copy of WaW (I traded my original copy in). The multiplayer just seems so much more balanced on WaW, the perk systems on MW2 was just pure tosh (before you start thining this is sour grapes, I was actually very good at MW2 (30 kill streak, 2:1 KDR) I just thought it sucked ass. COD7 will be at the top of my list this Autumn.
I think Activision need to slow down, give developers more time to make better games. There is no way they can keep making AAA titles with this 2 year cycle.
Ok, the downside is that if MW2 was out a year later it wouldn't have done as well as it did since we'd have Bad Company 2 and Medal of Honour, but the games are flat, lack depth and lack content. Hell it got me annoyed that they had General Shepard. Can't even think of names now can they? Commander Shepard is the one true Shepard.
If the new CoD isn't better than MW2 in every aspect, I will not buy the game. There are better purchases out there.
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