14 DAY TRIAL // Yesterday we talked about how Regie Fils-Aime, the president of Nintendo of America, said that New Super Mario Bros Wii, which was set to be released later during the month and marked the first time as Mario videogame, would support four-player multiplayer on the Nintendo home console, would be selling better than Modern Warfare 2, from Infinity Ward and Activision, when NPD Group numbers from December and January were taken into account.
Now an analyst, Jesse Divnich, who watches the videogames market for Electronic Entertainment Design and Research, seems to be in part confirming what Fils-Aime has said by predicting that, overall, the Mario adventure will register bigger sales than the newest release in the Call of Duty franchise. He says “EEDAR feels comfortable to make the prediction that the New Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Wii will be one of the top titles this holiday season. While in the short-term the Xbox 360 version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 may surpass New Super Mario Bros., in the long-term New Super Mario Bros. will easily become the best selling title released in 2009 with expected lifetime sales exceeding 15 million units worldwide”.
Fils-Aime might have been a little optimistic when he talked about better sales on one platform before January, but he might be proved right in the long run. Basically, Activision is cannibalizing its own sales by committing to the release of a new Call of Duty videogame every year, while Nintendo is making its big releases two and even four years away in order to make sure that the previous one sells well in the meantime. Considering that New Super Mario Bros has sold about 20 million copies since its 2006, it would be no surprise for the new release to see Modern Warfare 2 beat out.