IndustryGamers had a chance to speak today with Tony Bartel, Executive VP of Merchandising and Marketing for GameStop, who told us how thrilled the leading games retailer is with the upcoming release of Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which analyst Michael Pachter believes will generate $500 million in its first week.
Judging by GameStop's comments to us, however, it's possible Modern Warfare 2 could do even better than that. Speaking about the pre-orders for the game, Bartel said, “They are the largest in GameStop history, and we're very excited about it. I think to put it in perspective, we have more pre-orders on this game than all of the games that were sold system-wide globally on the last Call of Duty (World at War) in its first month. ... This is clearly going to be the biggest entertainment release of our history.”
We asked Bartel if GameStop had a breakdown on pre-orders for Xbox 360 versus PS3, since many pundits expect the 360 version to outpace the PS3 SKU. Although GameStop wouldn't provide specific data, Bartel noted, “I can tell you this – with the recent [console] price decreases, as you can see with the NPD data, PS3 has surged and that is beginning to be reflected in all of the games we're selling. You're getting more of an installed base now on PS3, so you're starting to see that being a higher percent of pre-orders. That being said, Xbox 360 is still a predominant portion of the pre-orders."
Modern Warfare 2 also made headlines recently because of a somewhat controversial leaked video, which depicted gameplay from a terrorist's point of view. We were curious what GameStop thought about this, but the retailer doesn't appear concerned, and stressed to us that the “M” rating will be strictly enforced.
“I love the fact that in our industry we have a very strong rating agency, the ESRB, that is very much adhered to industry-wide and this game did receive an 'M' rating – clearly the content in question is consistent with that – and I do believe in talking with Activision that within the context of the game this is a very different perspective than when you just see this clip taken out of context,” Bartel commented. “Nonetheless, what we will do is ensure that we will not sell this game to anyone under 17.”
We'll have much more from our GameStop interview soon. Stay tuned!
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