Xbox: Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 sales look to outpace Black Ops

by Godzilla Smith

So much for the rise of mobile gaming killing off home consoles. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 went on sale last night to fanfare, lines, more fanfare, and more lines, looking to eclipse the sales of the earlier Black Ops title in the process. MW3 is set to boost gaming sales on consoles from Xbox to PlayStation 3, giving gamers even more reason to avoid ever seeing the sun again – perhaps it’s fitting, then, that the game launched in the middle of the night. Even as an ever growing number of casual gamers shift their gaming efforts to devices like the iPhone and iPod touch and titles like the intentionally simplistic Angry Birds, the latest Call of Duty installment demonstrates just how sophisticated full blown console gaming has become for “real” gamers, the kind who queued up for Modern Warfare 3 even as their non-gamer friends are still sleeping off the all-nighters they pulled trying to get their hands on an iPhone 4S last month…

So which trend is correct, then: is this the era of the casual gamer who’s content to use their phone as their primary gaming device and stick with touchscreen games found in the App Store? Or is this the era of the console gamer who demands increasingly complex Xbox games which can be played on their home television screen? Apparently, it’s both, at least for the foreseeable future. Game developers win either way, so long as they can keep pulling off the impressive sophistication of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3… or the simple charm of Angry Birds.