Are Call of Duty Sales Beginning to Weaken? MW3 Down in January

Modern Warfare 3 sales down considerably in January compared to Black Ops.

Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 got off to another great start for the franchise in November of last year. Rocketing out of the gate to become the best selling game of 2011, sales of the first person shooter were undoubtedly spurred on by a heavy marketing campaign. But are sales beginning to die down for the franchise? Looking at year over year data between Modern Warfare 3 and 2010's Call of Duty: Black Ops, it appears that Modern Warfare 3 is actually lagging behind its predecessor.

According to the most recently released data from NPD, Modern Warfare 3 sold 386,000 copies of the game in the month of January. This is down considerably from Call of Duty: Black Ops' sales in January of last year, where Activision sold 750,000 copies of the game. It's hard to tell whether this trend will continue for Modern Warfare 3, because January was a down month in general for games.

Is shooter fatigue finally setting in on Call of Duty fans? Or is it just Call of Duty fatigue in general? It'll be interesting to see if these numbers continue to decline over the next few months to get a clearer picture of the situation.

Has shooter fatigue set in for you? Just tired of COD? Or loving every minute of it? Let us know in the comments below.

By Al McCarthy on February 12, 2012

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That Guy

lol. heavenswarrior incoming.
Heavenswarrior121

Oh wait i was suppose to be the first to comment lmao but idc wtf ofcourse its gonna die down,honestly i cant wait for street fighter x tekken and resident evil 6 im getting sick of fps games,in the past i use to play sport games,fighting games,action games but recently ive been buying all shooters now its startin to bore me so going back to my old gameing ways lol
- wtf
  
  is that all you say? hahahahahaha
1verce

bro wat type of article is this lol…………….. they already sold all they fuqing can
dont feed the trolls

maybe because almost everyone already has it.. not me thou, tired of the franchise period.
thundercatsho

wether we are tired of it or not what is the alternative??? BF3? i traded that in immediately! so its not for me thats for sure. what on earth will replace the mighty call of duty?? i’d like something to step up soon. much as i like cod it is all i play at the moment. can’t wait for black ops 2 now, it will hopefully be better than MW3.
- Adam Peacock
  
  What will beat it? In terms of quality, Bioshock Infinite will wipe the floor with it. In terms of sales, I dunno, but we’ll see, won’t we?
Xmg x VeXeD

Na kids cant afford it and finally mothers have stopped buying it for them because COD is an 18 game. Its still smashes any game into pieces and no shoot em up fighting games is going to beat it, some one saying something about tekken being better than COD?? u must be simple. I recon its because COD has its heros and the true fans have stayed true COD players since the ps2. Since quickscoping the lee enfield in tunisa or something like that. COD has years left and only has room for improvement no downfalls. I ruin people on cod and no plenty of other players that do so and i think its a fact of some people just wont ever be good enough now so revert to tekken lol. Im a true COD player who will never leave my search and destroy match with nothing less than 7-10 kills and thats a rubbish game. They could of put more height in mw3 like maps like quarry for the sick 360 quickscop outa the massive building but o well as a player u have to find new ways to use the maps to your advantage and get a just as good kill. MSR = BEAST. Its a recession and people still dont have money to waste so what u do find is kids will have to wait till birthdays and i know some who will prob have to wait till christmas lol. Look out for Xmg x VeXeD and the XmG x Clan : ) Number 1 COD FAN.
- Black_Napalm
  
  “I recon its because COD has its heros and the true fans have stayed true COD players since the ps2.” Want to give this sentence another try?
- Xmg x VeXeD
  
  Black Napalm. Na i dont need to give my sentence a retry. but for your simple cabbage brain here we go. True COD fans will always stay true to it and newbs like you will always sit on the side line slagging it off or making sly comments because u suck at the game. Its not loosing loyalty its just loosing kids like u that name there self BLACK NAPALM lol. So its not making the money selling the actuall games to kids that dont have hair on there balls, u can guarantee its made its money or making its money from ELITE and any other services they offer. Go buy a COD t-shirt or summing kid because thats the only way your gunna be able to enjoy the franchise because u clearly dont have the skill lol. Xmg x VeXeD. Get good kids!
- Black_Napalm
  
  hmmm yes i am the kid. anyway you still failed to comprehend what i was getting at CoD started on the PC, now a real CoD fan would know this and realize there blatant stupidity when saying a real CoD fan starts on the consoles. these days people who have played the entire CoD franchise seem to get reamed out by the tools of the new generation CoD fans, like you who think there top shit because you can quick scope…… congratulations you can do something everyone else has been able to do FOR YEARS…… hell I was quick scoping on Unreal Tournament probably before your immature ass was born. honestly it pains me to see where the CoD franchise has gone but it is what it is i just have to keep playing CoD 4 the best out of the Modern Warfare series and if you can say otherwise then your not a CoD fan.
- Xmg x VeXeD
  
  Jeeze man you are even american or you have a really small penis, i couldnt give a flying F*** if the first 1 came out on the bloody nintendo 64. I never once stated that i knew when the first one came out u stuck up peice of s***, u really need 2 get a life. And tbh with you, you fat f***er i never ment to say ps2 i ment to write COD 2 because that was when the whole thing kicked of for me, never liked COD 3 then after that COD 4 came and owned every online game possible. Your like one of them youtube faggots you see at the bottom of video’s who correct people’s spelling mistakes and petty stuff like that. You ever need to get laid or just shut the F*** up man. And any one playing COD 4 still is just a loner and as i have stated before doesn’t have the skill to own so you b**** around by yourself on a game that was improved massively on the follow ups. Dont get me wrong i love COD 4 and played that till 10th but it has been improved and only finf the need toplay it when my FRIENDS are on it. You just need to get off your fat A** and make some friends and try out a bit of mw3. And another thing man COD on computer is s***. O yea and when you go round trying to make people look small make a real argument before you go trying to pick things out of what people have said, if this was stating WHAT WAS THE FIRST COD then i bloody well would of write that down and not my opinion of why its made less money u complete and utter pri**. And please unreal tournament???? That just sums your character up completely. Xmg x VeXeD
- Black_Napalm
  
  hahaha your such a spaz get over yourself dude. i do agree with CoD being a console heavy game hell the last 5 CoD games i have bought were on the console but back in the day it was all PC, and don’t even start saying they have improved over CoD 4 adding pointless flashy shit dose not make a better game. but yeah who gives a shit you just keep on claiming to be hot shit at a video game….. your cool dude.
- Xmg x VeXeD
  
  Your just in denial, why would any one wanna run round with a shot gun primary and not a secondary why would any one wanna start shooting at people and they whore juggernaut. i just think ( if you actually are ) the way your trying to act on here, that your just too old for it now then. You dont seem to be able to handle the fast pace action. MW2 tactical knife, running round merking machine gunners by sneaking up on them and stabbing them. i just dont think your giving it the credit deserved, i know COD 4 is a beast game and i have had some of the best times on that game with my friends but even WAW is awesome you just have to play it to get good. Dunoo you seem to be to interested in other online games to appreciate how good COD is and still are, every single one of them. And they do have a game type for every player out there, perhaps you just haven’t found yours yet.But i know from playing all the online games starting at COD 4 ( yes napalm i do know they where online before COD 4 before you state the obvious again ) that any other online game just doesn’t live up to COD, i have tryed battlefield and medal of honour etc etc and nothing just has the same feeling and i know this is the same to 100 people in my friends list. every one gets tired of it and might go through stages of it but one way or another people always come back to it. The only game i can now enjoy are campaign games not online ones apart from COD and possibly halo but even that gets cheesey compared to COD. Your just not in the COD generation. Xmg x VeXeD
- Black_Napalm
  
  that was actually the best rebuttal anyone has given me on MW3….. oh and stop trying to paint me as being 46 or something i am 20 just been playing shooters since i was like 6. also one thing you should know and you can call bullshit all you want but i find MW3 too easy and too easy too exploit which is why i don’t like it as much, and the maps aren’t nearly as good as they used to be on the other CoD’s. i just miss the glory days on CoD 4 and when they said they were going to try and replicate what the did with CoD 4 and they failed, it felt like a slap in the face.
- AIRFREAK
  
  Cod 4 = quality
  MW2 = peice of horseshit
  MW3 = better, but overall meh.
  
  I can’t see how someone can just stick to a series with inconsistency like that.
Hoppsy

If you look at the COD article about a week or 2 ago i actually predicted this.

People will only be duped into buying the same game over and over for so long and everything regardless of how popular it is loses its appeal eventually.

I own COD because my friends play it and its fun to be on the mic with a team of 4 or 5 of us however i’m not exactly a big fan of military shooters.

The sales dropping is a good thing for the franchise in my opinion, maybe they will learn that they have to improve the game instead of re-skinning it.

If the future COD comes out on a new engine then maybe they can recapture the magic, maybe
AIRFREAK

freakenomics
Carrkool

Well i would have to say yes it is dying down. I would say with the COD Elite mishap where members where told they would get the DLC maps before everyone else and they did not say there would be a month diffenrence between PS3 and Xbox 360 so those that where waiting to get it when the first dlc maps came out are now waiting longer or nolonger getting the game. also with the very high amount of bad comments about the current game play on the PS3 after the 1.08 patch came out alot of people have said they are not getting it enless they hear things have changed. no one wants to spend good money on a online game that the IW staf will not fix properly when they messed it up….
jason

BATTLEFIELD 3 is on the rise!
Swamp_Nuttz

COD Best games ever!
bozmanbeyond

I dare you to try and thumb me down. COD SUCKS!

See I knew you couldn’t. LOL
- That Guy
  
  thumbing you down is too conformist so i thumbed you up.
counter troll ops

may be black ops was funner, i thank so
- That Guy
  
  funner? thats some more goodly english you got there.
- Hoppsy
  
  lol
njb

That kinda explains why MW3 in shops is dropping in price.

For example all the supermarkets are selling it for £34.99. Thats £10 less than RRP.

It doesnt surprise me, Things get old. Only a few can stand the test of time.

That however that needs a completely other article to even begin talking about
Xbox-PleaseShootMe

black ops was the best one to me. guns were cool, wager matches were awesome, and the maps were okay too (made for fun gameplay). i always used to play gun game with a mic and the voice changer deep while i kept laughing like the devil the whole time. everybody would get freaked out or mad, it was funny.
- Fateshift
  
  Black Ops was the worst.
Honey Badger

I’m tired of CoD, I want something new like Halo or BioShock, titles that don’t bore you so easily, because the only GOOD thing in CoD is the multiplayer AND The Modern Warfare Series Campaign
AIRFREAK

Changed it again
tylerdurden516

I fell outta love with this franchise after mw2. The action is too one-sided. Battlefield can be played like cod, but being able to drive a tank, fly a chopper, base jump or parachute out of a chopper, fly jets, repair stuff, revive people, give your team ammo, and equip diff sights and perks after each death really make cod seem stuck in the past.
Xbox-PleaseShootMe

yeah bf3, to me, is a more rewarding experience. the whole idea of teamwork and strategy is awesome but i still see alot of CoD style of play. especially with the usas 12 :/ in TDM thank god for conquest though! I love tanks!
Twanskys

Needs dedicated servers for ps3