There's no doubt that Modern Warfare 2 is one of the biggest releases of the year, and Gamestop certainly feel that way as well. Tony Bartel of Gamestop said that they "expect Modern Warfare 2 could be the best selling title of all time.” But as Joystiq has noted, the game has a bit of a hurdle to climb in order to achieve that.

On the conference call following the release of GameStop's second-quarter fiscal results, Tony Bartel, EVP of Merchandising and Marketing, talked about games that would help drive the back half of the year for the industry and GameStop. He pointed to Halo: ODST, Assassin's Creed 2, and most important of all, Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

In fact, GameStop believes Modern Warfare 2 could set new records. “We expect Modern Warfare 2 could be the best selling title of all time,” Bartel said. He added later in the call that GameStop has been seeing “very strong reservations” for the Prestige edition of Modern Warfare 2, which ships with the night vision goggles. Once that edition was announced, he said that GameStop saw many customers upgrade from the base version to the premium version, “which is a very good sign.”

Overall, he noted that “anticipated price reductions for consoles will drive demand and expand the installed base for our core audience.”

McClubbin via industrygamers.com »