Life-to-day sales for Activision's Modern Warfare 3 are behind 2010's Black Ops as they were at this time last year, according to analyst firm Macquarie Equities.
Official sales figures are not available, however the firm says that Modern Warfare 3 volume sales are down by around 4.2 per cent.
March saw the biggest drop off for the game, with the month's sales for the game apparently less than half the amount Black Ops sold in the corresponding month in 2011.
The driving force behind the drop? Casual gamers are buying less games at retail, relying more on video streaming services on their consoles for entertainment, according to PiperJaffray.
Webush Securities analyst Michael Pachter believes current sales patterns indicate that consumers are now less likely to buy a game after the initial debut, making software sales figures more reliant on new releases.
Shockingly, Activision Blizzard, the publisher of the insanely popular Call of Duty series, generated 34 per cent of its revenue for the fiscal quarter from digital sales, mostly from the 1.5 million premium Call of Duty Elite members.
Source: Gamasutra
By Gaetano Prestia - Tweet @Gaetano_Prestia