US retailer GameStop is predicting Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 could be the best-selling game of all time.

Although sales were down for the company in the most recent financial quarter, the retailer expects the market to pick up due to a strong release slate in the back end of the year, lead by the Infinity Ward shooter.

"Although we have seen some title slippage, we still see a strong fall line-up, led by Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, Assassin’s Creed 2, and Halo 3 ODST, and expect that Modern Warfare 2 could be the best-selling title of all time," said Julian Paul Raines, chief operating officer, in a conference call to investors.

Pre-orders for the game are strong, said GameStop, with consumers upgrading from the standard and Hardened editions, priced at $59.99 and $79.99 respectively, to the Prestige Edition, which ships with night vision goggles for $149.99.

"We believe that Modern Warfare 2 has a chance to be the largest title of all time and obviously we are basing that on the reservation activity that we are seeing in our stores, so we continue to see strong reservation activity," added Tony Bartel, executive vice president.

"We have very strong reservations on the Call of Duty Prestige Edition and that’s obviously a price point. There’s a lot of excitement around the goggles on that, so we have a very strong demand that we are seeing in our reservations. Once that was announced, we had a lot of reservations move from the base version to the Prestige version, which is a very good sign."