Though tomorrow’s Call of Duty: Black Ops is poised to be one of the biggest games of the year, but an analyst believes Activision is undervaluing it compared to last year’s Modern Warfare 2.
Let’s face it: If you don’t think Call of Duty: Black Ops is going to sell like proverbial hotcakes made out of crack cocaine, you’ve got another thing coming. In Activision’s recent earnings report, CEO Bobby Kotick said that he expected the game to eclipse the staggering release of Modern Warfare 2 to become the biggest entertainment launch of all time.
While it may have a larger launch, however, one analyst thinks that Activision is setting its Modern Warfare sights a bit low. According to Cowen & Company analyst Doug Creutz, Activision’s Q3 results include an “assumption that the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops comps negatively against last year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, despite the fact that on several pre-release metrics cited by management Black Ops is tracking ahead of MW2.”
While Creutz thinks that Black Ops will ultimately fail to reach the high-water mark set by Cods Mew Too, he believes that Activision is low-balling Treyarch’s entry into the series. “… We think management is taking a more conservative stance for guidance purposes,” he said. “We think management’s guidance implies Black Ops units down roughly 20% vs. MW2.”
Creutz, meanwhile, estimates that CoD: BlOps will sell roughly 10% worse than Modern Warfare 2. In case you’re keeping score, this is still more copies than 99% of games will ever sell in their lifetimes.
(Via CVG)
