Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare predicted to sell less than Ghosts, Black Ops 2

In the second report of its kind, industry analysts at Cowen and Company are predicting that Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare will likely sell less than Ghosts and Black Ops 2, based on pre-order data.

Games Industry International is reporting that analysts from Cowen and Company are predicting that Advanced Warfare will sell 40% less copies than Ghosts and 70% less than Black Ops 2. The declining numbers are based on Amazon pre-order data.

"Advanced Warfare is now pacing almost 40 per cent behind last year's Ghosts (vs. 50 per cent last week) and almost 70 per cent behind 2012's Black Ops 2 (vs. 80 per cent last week)," they said. "We continue to believe CoD will be down meaningfully vs. last year. With the franchise facing two consecutive significant year on year declines in sales, we think it is prudent to assume it has peaked."

It's not all bleak for this year's Call of Duty though. The firm expects Advanced Warfare to sell more copies than Destiny during its first year, that is unless Destiny gets a massive sales boost when The Dark Below expansion launches in December.

Cown and Co. admit that data based on pre-order numbers could be misleading and give the example of Destiny and Watch Dogs, both of which have enjoyed high pre-order numbers. Pre-orders are also down overall, either due to the new-consoles' digital focus, or just simply due to consumers choosing to wait for word-of-mouth and not get the game on day one.

This is not the first time we've heard this sentiment. The same conclusion was reached a few weeks back by Research firm Sterne Agee.

There are more details through the link, including how the analysts reached this conclusion.