Call of Duty 4 to Outsell Halo 3

Despite Microsoft's unprecedented advertising push, industry analyst Todd Greenwald expects Call of Duty 4 to sell more copies than Halo 3."Call of Duty 4, which was released last week by Activision, appears to be in extremely high demand and is sold out across the board," Greenwald told the Escapist.

"We've checked with a wide range of retailers (Gamestop, Wal-Mart, Target) and only pre-orders are being satisfied - stores are otherwise sold out of the title.

"The game has an average score of 9.5/10 on Metacritic.com, which is almost unprecedented, and puts it on par with Halo 3. It certainly is the highest-rated game Activision has ever created.

"Keep in mind, CoD4 is launching on four times as many platforms (Xbox 360, PlayStation3, PC, DS) as Halo 3 (360 only). Halo 3 has so far sold about 4 million units. A year ago, Call of Duty 3 sold about 3 million units, and we anticipate this year's version could do four million or more."

Call of Duty 4 is the first non-WWII game in the series and is rated M for mature. GamePro gave the game a 5 out of 5 calling it the shooter of the year. It even out gunned Halo 3 in our recent Call of Duty 4 vs. Halo 3 faceoff.