Analyst: 4 million CoD: Elite subs possible in a year

Call of Duty: Elite could have four million subscribers within the first 12 months, EEDAR’s Jesse Divnich told Industry Gamers. The online service for Call of Duty could reach 1.5 million subs by the end of 2011.

“In terms of the services potential, our current surveys and market research indicate that Call of Duty: Elite could achieve 10 to 20 per cent penetration among Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 purchasers. This likely translates into about 2 to 4 million subscribers after 12 months and likely 1.5 million subscribers by the end of 2011. We suspect that the subscription price will range in the $4.99 area,” said Divinch.

Divinch was cautious to point out that Activision might not have the military FPS genre all its own way this year, with Battlefield 3 potentially being a big barrier for Modern Warfare 3 to hurdle.

“It is critical, however, that CoD MW3 achieves critical acclaim as the bulk of subscribers are likely to come from the core gaming community, where review scores can have incredible influence,” he added. “While this wouldn’t have been a factor in prior years, as CoD has faced little competition, the release of Battlefield 3 could prove to be a thorn in CoD’s side. If Battlefield 3 outperforms in reviews by a considerable amount (5 points) the core gaming community could shift their annual FPS purchase over to Battlefield 3.”

While Battlefield 3 is certainly gaining momentum, nothing of the console versions has been seen yet. Modern Warfare 3 is known to be locked at a blistering 60fps which will make it the game of choice for the hardcore. The core CoD multiplayer experience will have to be significantly poorer than Battlefield 3 for large numbers of fans to switch allegiances.