While cocky about their product during the release of GTA V, claiming it would fly of the shelves faster than Rockstar’s title, Activision have had to eat some humble pie today by admitting Call of Duty: Ghosts has sold less on release than last years Black Op IIs.

CFO Dennis Durkin, Speaking at an investors call November 7, stated:

“Today, we announced that we had shipped into retail more than $1bn of Call of Duty: Ghosts globally on day one based on an average wholesale price. As expected, due to the console transition and digital distribution, this number is down versus last year.”

This is the first time sales of a Call of Duty game have gone down since the beginning of the Modern Warfare series. The reason why you may ask? Well, Activision blame the next-gen:

“This year, the sell-through curve will be different than in past years due to the multiple launches of new hardware later in the month and more days between our launch and the high-volume Black Friday at the end of the month”

This isn’t just Activision playing the blame game though, with cross-generation games selling less as players wait for their next-gen versions instead of the current-gen releases. Both Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag and Battlefield 4 have been effected so far.

You may also be wondering where the “$1bn” of Ghosts sales came from if it undersold expectations. Activision reported Ghosts broke the $1bn mark in a day, a third of the time it took for GTA V. All of these sales however were what was sold to retailers, and not what was actually sold to consumers. Fancy word-play sadly doesn’t break records, but points for trying Activision.

What do you think? Can Call of Duty: Ghosts make up sales in the next gen, or have gamers gotten sick of the series? Let us know in the comments.