Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 India Sales Slump As Spider-Man 2 Ends Up Being the Best-Selling Game of 2023
Few surprises in India’s top 5 selling new games of 2023 on PS5, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch
It turns out that the frequent discounts for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 on digital storefronts were a symptom of a bigger problem — flagging sales across the board. As per multiple Indian retailers, sales of Activision’s latest shooter were well below expectations. Speaking on condition of anonymity fearing retribution, multiple store owners across the country have stated that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 India sales were 40% lower than last year’s instalment.
“We usually move 5,000 units during the first month of a new Call of Duty game,” says a Delhi-based retailer. “This time around we barely sold about 3,000. Customers simply weren’t interested in the new game.”
One could point at Sony’s ongoing bundling of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 with the PS5 as a reason for this. However, from all of the company’s current bundles, which include Cricket 24, Spider-Man 2, and EA FC24, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has sold the slowest.
“We moved around 150 units of the PS5 in November 2023,” says a sales manager for a large electronics retailer in Mumbai. “However the Call of Duty was the slowest moving.”
No surprise given the Rs. 59,390 price, which has seen multiple discounts since then. For reference, the PS5 alone retails for Rs. 49,990 — a nearly Rs. 10,000 premium isn’t what the market is willing to pay for.
It’s an interesting turn of events given that past entries, notably 2020’s excellent Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War ended up being the PS5’s biggest-selling game at launch in the country.
What’s more interesting is, none of Activision’s games sold in India at retail since Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War are official stock from the company. The void has regularly been filled by an efficient parallel import system that supply independent retailers that make up around 50% of all console game sales in the country.
The reason for a lack of an official release is that Activision wants to sell its games at retail in India for Rs. 5,999. For reference, first-party Sony releases have a Rs. 5,000 price tag. Rs. 5,999 would be a bridge too far for most Indian gamers. Parallel imports of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 were available for as low as Rs. 5,200 during launch week similar to past entries.
So what’s the cause of such a sales slump? Product quality. Regardless of the store size and sales volume, they all pointed to the game’s lacklustre campaign and features versus past games.
“Customers come in, we nudge them to check out Modern Warfare 3, they say the single-player is bad from the reviews they’ve read,” says a Bengaluru game store owner. “They aren’t interested in multiplayer because there’s barely anything new there and Warzone is free.”
While Activision and its new owner Microsoft have their work cut out for them, 2023 saw some heavy hitters. Here are the best-selling games in India in 2023 on PS5, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch at retail.
Spider-Man 2
Hogwarts Legacy
Mortal Kombat 1
Assassin’s Creed Mirage
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
In terms of sheer pre-orders, Assassin’s Creed Mirage remained the number one AAA game pre-ordered in India this year thus far eclipsing both Valhalla and Origins as well as Spider-Man 2. However in actual sales through the year, Spider-Man 2, Hogwarts Legacy, and Mortal Kombat 1 remained steady sellers as did The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Given the price tags of these games at launch, Sony remained the outlier with a Rs. 5,000 price (and an outsized marketing budget). Everything else was priced below Rs. 4,500 (and had relatively lower marketing budgets).
Genre and IP play an important role too. All of these are known IP in established genres. Granted we’ve seen some green shoots in genres like RPGs and horror, but it’s safe to say that this is representative of what Indian console gamers play. Naturally, this doesn’t include steady selling back catalogue titles that released before 2023 like GTA 5.
2024 should be an eventful a year, stacked with games like Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Dragon’s Dogma 2, and Tekken 8 to name a few. Sure, Sony and Microsoft appear to have a quieter year ahead, it’s likely that third-party games will take centre stage.
Other interesting insights from the Indian games market
Speaking of Spider-Man 2, Sony did not release the Collector’s Edition of the game despite taking money upfront from customers months prior to release. Sources in the supply chain tell me the stock for this edition was held up in customs indicating that it indeed made it to the country. As to why Sony was unable to clear customs is unknown.
Sticking with Sony, Helldivers 2 failed to make it on disc for the PS5 in the country. Given the game’s popularity it seems like a missed opportunity. More so when parallel importers have already sold their initial shipments before they have even landed in India.
Meta Quest 2 and 3 sales have been steady through 2023 with a combined 5,000 units sold since 2021. Throw Meta’s nascent interest in Indian game developers making VR content and this could be a space to watch.