Call of Duty’s US physical sales down sharply

Activision’s Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare suffered a similar High Street sales decline in the US as it did in the UK.

CNBC reports that physical sales of the game were down by around 50 per cent in November compared to its predecessor Black Ops III. That’s virtually the same as the 48.4 per cent year-on-year launch dip seen in the UK last month.

Analyst Doug Creutz added that sales of the game were 17 per cent lower than his forecasts at close to 50 per cent”. Another analyst pegged the drop at 51 per cent.

It’s not yet known how well Infinite Warfare fared digitally and how much of that annual sales decline those numbers were able to claw back. Activision has not yet revealed any data.

Speculation has already begun that Activision may decide to sell its Modern Warfare: Remastered digital game separately. At launch that title was only available to those who bought a bumper higher-price Infinite Warfare SKU, but a separate stand-alone digital release would certainly give the series a much needed revenue boost.

Other chatter has started to ask whether Activision could choose to give the series a break in 2017 – something that has not happened since 2004.