Analyst: Call of Duty Will Crush Battlefield V and Red Dead Redemption 2

For the past few months now, gaming companies have been talking about what kind of unstoppable [...]

Piper Jaffray 4

For the past few months now, gaming companies have been talking about what kind of unstoppable juggernaut Red Dead Redemption 2 will be when it arrives this October. However, a new report from Piper Jaffray suggests that, while it will be a hit, two popular sequels actually stand a chance at outselling it this holiday season.

Analysts for the group, Michael J. Olson and Yung Kim, estimated that Activision's forthcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 could be a huge hit with fans, even with the lack of a traditional single player campaign. The team predicted that the game would sell 21.5 million copies this holiday season, which stands as 3.5 million more than what the company suggested Call of Duty: WWII would sell. The full Activision chart can be found below.

Piper Jaffray
(Photo: Piper Jaffray)

From there, it moved on to Electronic Arts, which is putting a lot of hype into its upcoming Battlefield V game. According to Piper Jaffray's team, the game is set to sell 16 million units by the end of the fiscal year, below Black Ops 4. That should still be a more than suitable number to continue the series' ongoing success. The EA chart is as follows:

Piper Jaffray 2
(Photo: Piper Jaffray)

Then that brings us to Red Dead Redemption 2. While some retailers believe the game will go gangbusters, Piper Jaffray's duo feels that it'll sell less than the two games above. That doesn't mean it'll fail though, as they still believe the game will clear 15.5 million copies by the end of the fiscal year. This could mainly be because Rockstar Games hasn't revealed too much about the game just yet, with the game only a few months out from its release. But the publisher could be building up for a much bigger reveal, so hopefully we'll see what that brings. The Take-Two chart is below:

Piper Jaffray 3
(Photo: Piper Jaffray)

Other games expected to do well for the season include Overwatch with an additional ten million copies sold; FIFA 19 with 22 million copies sold; NBA 2K19 with nearly ten million copies sold; and BioWare's Anthem clearing around 4.5 million copies at launch. Other games were mentioned too, like Spyro the Dragon: Reignited Trilogy (three million copies) and Destiny 2: Forsaken (eight million copies, not including DLC).

These aren't exact numbers, but rather estimates. And keep in mind there are a number of titles that aren't gauged here, such as Sony's Spider-Man or Square Enix's Shadow of the Tomb Raider. We'll see how well these sales hold up over the next few months.

All three of the "big" games, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, Battlefield V and Red Dead Redemption 2, release across consecutive weeks between October 12 and October 16.

1comments