Nov 10, 2010 21:31 GMT  ·  By

Michael Pachter, who is an analyst working with Wedbush Morgan, has said that the Call of Duty branded video game that publisher Activision Blizzard is preparing to put out in the second half of 2011 might struggle to sell 13 million copies, significantly less than the projected sales for this year's Call of Duty: Black Ops.

The prediction from Pachter came in a note that talked about the prospects for the company after it announced better than thought financial results, crediting them to strong performances from the World of Warcraft MMO, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty.

Pachter says it “will be a challenge for it to sell 13 million units, particularly if the title is from Sledgehammer. While the staff at Sledgehammer are all veterans, they are unproven as a team, and the next game that they release will be their first together.”

Activision Blizzard confirmed that they are planning to release a new Call of Duty game next year but the company has not talked about who is creating the game or what genre it will fall into.

The strongest bet is that Infinity Ward is creating the game and that it will include the Modern Warfare brand in the final title but the developer might be too affected by the scandal involving key personnel to create a game that is on the same level of quality as the first or second games in their series.

But Activision has revealed that Sledgehammer Games, made up of developers who previously worked on the first Dead Space for Electronic Arts, was also involved with Call of Duty, initially said to be working on creating a third person adventure game spin off.

Recently information appeared that the Sledgehammer video game is also first person and could be launched in late 2011.