Market research firm Nielsen has compiled a list of what it says will be the most anticipated releases of the holiday sales season, and there are few surprises.
Call of Duty: Black Ops III tops the list of games to be released between October and December 2015, with a 98 percent Game Rank, which the company defines as “the overall anticipation level among gamers on each platform, based on a combination of several key measures (including awareness, purchase interest, consumer rating and others). The percent value shown reflects how strong the overall anticipation level is for the title, relative to the pre-release anticipation levels of all previous titles that released on the platform(s).”
Fallout 4 follows close on its heels, which is then closely trailed by Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate. Need for Speed and Star Wars: Battlefront round out the top 5. Notable platform exclusives don’t stray far from what you’d expect: StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void is slated as the biggest PC game, and Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection is anticipated on the PlayStation 4, while Halo 5: Guardians has the highest rank of any title on the list, with 100 percent anticipation on the Xbox One.
Interestingly, the most anticipated game on the Nintendo 3DS is actually from a third party: Bandai Namco’s Dragon Ball Z: Extreme Butoden. The most anticipated PlayStation Vita game is Xseed’s Corpse Party: Blood Drive — an obscure release on a system mainly now supported by niche publishers that localize Japanese games.
Though it’s not explicitly specified, the rankings seem to be based around games sold at retail.
