Wii, PC retail declines drove Modern Warfare 3 drop, says analyst

Despite reports that sales of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 are beginning to slow down compared to the rest of the franchise, analyst group Cowen and Company says that this decline is down to significantly reduced sales in the PC, Wii and handheld versions, rather than the console releases. Cowen's Doug Creutz said in his latest report that while life-to-date Modern Warfare 3 retail sales are indeed down 4.6 percent year-over-year compared to Black Ops, sales of the game on the Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms are actually slightly up year-over-year. However, large declines in sales of the versions of the game for Nintendo Wii, handheld platforms and PC have driven the overall decline, he suggests. He also said that sales faced "a fairly stiff challenge" from EA's Battlefield 3 which launched around the same time as Modern Warfare 3, and he pointed out that EA will not be repeating this move again this year when the next Call of Duty is released. Overall, Cowen and Company has "slightly trimmed" its sales estimate for the next Call of Duty title to reflect the year-over-year decline of Modern Warfare 3, but the analyst believes that the chances of success for the next title in the series will remain high.