This year's CoD "not planned on repeating the same level of success as" MW2, says Acti

Activision CEO Mike Griffith said in the company's year-end financial call last night that this year's version of Call of Duty wont do as well as Modern Warfare 2 did in November of last year. Shocker.

Earlier this year, it was revealed the Infinity Ward blockbuster had grossed over $1 billion since launch, only becoming the third game ever to hit the goal, with $550 million taken in the first five days at retail.

However, the exec remained "bullish" about the new game's chances this Christmas.

"We’ve consistently grown the Call of Duty franchise revenues year-over-year for the past seven years and we expect to continue our strategy annualizing franchise opportunity. At the same time, we’ve recognized that Modern Warfare 2 was an unprecedented success driven in part by the game quality, our retail and marketing execution and by the relatively friendly competitive environment," said Griffith.

"We expect to have a more difficult competitive environment this year and therefore, we have not planned on repeating the same level of success as we enjoyed in 2009. That said, we are still bullish on this year’s title and we do see upside potential if we execute well by engaging the much larger set of consumers, who were introduced to the Call of Duty franchise in 2009."

The new title, supposedly set in Vietnam, is due for a release towards the end of the year.

Griffith's comments came in Activision's year-end financial call. Get everything from the event here.