In his report on the future of the Call of Duty franchise, Hickey underlined the damaging effects of Activision's dispute with Vince Zampella and Jason West on the remaining employees at Infinity Ward, but did not rule out the success of Modern Warfare 3, only if it sees a 2011 release.
Hickey explains, "Given the continued employee defections at Infinity Ward, we expect the development timeline for Modern Warfare 3 has been compromised. And while we remain financially modeled to the likelihood of the game’s release in fiscal ’11 given the Company’s strong history of executive performance, we also acknowledge the potential that the game is delayed beyond our modeled expectation or relative quality drags."
The analyst also estimated that, should Modern Warfare 3 see a 2011 launch, it would make somewhere in the region of "$738 million in sales from the game’s expected fiscal Q4’11 release."
We recently reported Hickey's
prediction that Infinity Ward would close after the release of the second Modern Warfare 2 map pack. Hickey elaborates, "We expect Infinity Ward studio will be essentially closed after their next map pack release, with development work on Modern Warfare 3 spread between two studios not historically tied to the franchise."
EA also commented on the state of play at Infinity Ward at its recent financial address. In an
interview Head of EA Partners David DeMartini said of the Modern Warfare dispute, "A franchise is damaged – maybe never to be the same again. But then at the same time other things spring up. As one thing dies, you have Respawn popping up, who are going to do other great things in collaboration with us now."“You know, I guess everything happens for a reason. You just kind of look at a situation and you shake your head and go 'How did this all come to be?'. But it did come to be and we just couldn't be happier to work with Vince and Jason and the team at Respawn.â€
It's a messy situation indeed, but let's not forget about
Call of Duty: Black Ops. If the game matches the quality of Modern Warfare, perhaps the developer could team up with Infinity Ward on Modern Warfare 3?
