Call of Duty: Black Ops to Smash Records
NEW YORK (
) --
Activision
(ATVI) - Get Report
jumped more than 3.5% in early afternoon trading Monday on hype that its new
Call of Duty: Black Ops
game will break video game sales records.
The game is already tracking to surpass records set last year by its predecessor,
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
, which sold 4.7 million copies its first day of global sales.
In October, retailer
GameStop
(GME) - Get Report
said pre-orders for
Black Ops
were higher than those for
Modern Warefare
during the same timeframe.
Amazon
(AMZN) - Get Report
also tweeted last week that
Black Ops
pre-orders had exceeded those of
Modern Warefare
.
Domestic pre-orders of
Black Ops
are around 3 million, said Daniel Ernst, an analyst at Hudson Square Research, who expects combined one-day global sales to "materially surpass" those of
Modern Warefare
.
However, overall quarterly sales of
Black Ops
are expected to be 10% to 20% lower than its predecessor, said Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey.
Infinity Ward, the studio that created
Modern Warfare
, is traditionally regarded as higher in quality than Treyarch, which developed
Black Ops
, Hickey said. "The higher quality and the modernish tweak to the gameplay for Infinity Ward gives
Modern Warefare
a sales advantage," he said.
Anticipation for the game was evident over the weekend as robbers stole more than 100 copies of the game from a GameStop in Baltimore.
Last week,
Activision beat third quarter sales and profit estimates
, as adjusted profit rose to 12 cents per share, from 4 cents per share last year. Analysts had expected profit of 9 cents per share.
Adjusted revenue jumped to $857 million from $755 million during the year-ago quarter. Analysts had expected revenue of $747 milllion.
Despite Activision's strong performance, the video game industry has suffered from a drop in software sales as consumers have moved towards online channels. Software sales declined 6% in September to $614 million, according to NPD.
--Written by Olivia Oran in New York.
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