14 DAY TRIAL // An analyst of the video game industry has said that the upcoming Medal of Honor Afghanistan based first person shooter from Electronic Arts needs for pre launch marketing and buzz in order to have a good chance of challenging the Treyarch made and Activision published Call of Duty: Black Ops.
Todd Mitchell, who is an analyst working with Kaufman Bros., has stated, “We are increasingly concerned about the prospects for Medal of Honor. The game is not developing the level of buzz necessary to knock Call of Duty off its perch.”
The main problem the analyst sees with Medal of Honor is the launch windown chosen by the publisher Electronic Arts, as it is “ill-timed, sandwiched between the September 14 release of Microsoft's Halo: Reach, which recorded $200 million in first-day sales, and the November 9 release of Call of Duty: Black Ops.”
Pre orders of Call of Duty: Black Ops have been higher than those registered for last year's Modern Warfare 2, and analysts believes that the game might actually sell more than 10 million copies during the Christmas shopping season.
Mittchell says that there's a clear overlap between the probable audiences of Halo: Reach, Medal of Honor and Call of Duty and that gamers will not see a good reason to actually pick them all up, meaning that the game which has the least buzz will likely be left on the shelf.
Medal of Honor could also sell less because of a controversy which was built around the fact that the multiplayer section of the game allows players to take on the role of Taliban and kill United States soldiers.
Developers for both titles said that there was no value to the controversy but retailer GameStop decided to not sell the first person shooter in its stores situated on military bases.
Medal of Honor arrives on October 12 while Call of Duty: Black Ops launched on November 9.