Call of Duty: Ghosts pre-orders 'well below' Black Ops 2 due to next-gen 'hesitation'
Activision's Eric Hirshberg has confirmed that pre-orders for Call of Duty: Ghosts are "well below" that of last year's game. But the reason may surprise you.
Activision's Eric Hirshberg has confirmed that pre-orders for Call of Duty: Ghosts are "well below" that of last year's game. But the reason may surprise you.
According to Hirshberg, pre-orders are lower "as one might expect in this console transition year." While the prospect of a next-gen COD should be exciting for series fans, apparently there is "hesitation" over which version to get.
Citing "quantitative consumer research," Hirshberg says that previous COD owners simply don't know which system they'll be playing on--"natural at this time in the console transition." For example, perhaps the COD vet wants to play on Xbox One--but isn't quite sure that he'll be able to pick up a system this holiday season.
A beautiful nugget of the PR machine picked up by CVG points out that pre-orders are "over double" those of the first Black Ops, which is the last time Activision launched a new COD sub-brand.
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replyAndrew Yoon posted a new article, Call of Duty: Ghosts pre-orders 'well below' Black Ops 2 due to next-gen 'hesitation'.
Activision's Eric Hirshberg has confirmed that pre-orders for Call of Duty: Ghosts are "well below" that of last year's game. But the reason may surprise you.-
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First thing I thought of. Anticipation over migrating to new consoles has to be pure PR spin.
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Odd. I figured that the transition would drive sales, being that players would have the greatest chance to claim lauded after CoD handles, such as XxX420DopeSmokaXxX or 420FagotBuster.
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It isn't impressive enough to warrant people grabbing the next generation of consoles. When you see this game next to Battlefield 4 or Killzone: Shadowfall it looks laughably bad in every area. I used to be a big fan but I got burnt out. Picked up Hardened Edition of BLOPS 2 for 25 bucks (after trading in way old titles) and I rarely played it.
It needs a massive visual overhaul and the multiplayer needs to be reworked. It's not broken, but it can be improved. Level destruction anyone? -
This is pretty much in line with what Eric Hirshberg said back in the February 7th earnings call: http://www.shacknews.com/article/77750/call-of-duty-2013-sales-expected-to-fall-short-of
Same excuse, too: next-gen consoles.
"There is increased volatility this year due to the ongoing console transition, which makes predicting the future more challenging than during normal years in the cycle. For Call of Duty, consistent with our past practices, we are planning for the mainline release in Q4 to be down versus 2012."
There's the key: every year, they set their estimates lower than the record-breaking sales of yesteryear, and then they either beat those numbers, or hit their estimate. http://www.splitreason.com/product/theescapist/1225 -
A lot of COD haters have (and will) comment on this story saying that Activision's statement is just PR spin designed to cover the wishful demise of of the COD franchise.
That said, the fact that COD: Ghosts is set to release on 11/05/2013 and the Xbox One is set tentatively for 11/29/2013 does create a pretty irrefutable case for why a good portion of that community would still be waiting to pre-order the game... in addition to the fact that we don't know much of anything about the game or how the 360 and One versions compare at all.
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