Analyst: Modern Warfare 3 To Sell 19M Units During Current Fiscal Year

A new analyst report from Baird Equity Research suggests that strong Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 sales should help Activision offset the sales decline for World of Warcraft. Baird's Colin Sebastian noted that sales of the new multiplayer shooter are expected to reach 18-19 million units by the end of the current fiscal year's fourth quarter -- December 31 -- generating around $1.1-1.2 billion of revenue for the company. Sebastian explained that these record sales should help Activision balance out the declines in World of Warcraft subscriptions, with the total number of subscriptions expected to stablize in the 10-11 million region. The analyst also noted that, while video game sales are estimated to have increased by 5-10 percent year-over-year, this figure is still slightly below the consensus estimate. He believes that, of the top 10 console titles of October in terms of sales, seven were for Xbox 360, while two were PS3 games and one was for the Nintendo Wii. Modern Warfare 3 was released today, with analyst Michael Pachter having estimated just last month that it will have sold around 16 million units by the end of 2011.