Yesterday, HMV made some bold predictions. Claiming that if numbers don't like, Call of Duty Black Ops will be the biggest game ever.
"We're seeing some exceptional interest for this title across its different formats," HMV's senior buyer James Brooks revealed to Eurogamer. "Particularly our co-exclusive on the Prestige Edition on HMV.com, where stock is nearly sold-through now and very little is left.

"Based on all this initial demand and the huge excitement that's clearly being generated, I'd say this title has every chance of being the biggest game release ever, and it's certainly shaping up to become the largest pre-order that we've seen in-store and online on HMV.com."

"We are ahead of where we were with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 last year, which previously set the industry standard," Bob McKenzie commented.

It's also claiming the top spot on the charts of Play.com, GAME, and is claiming second spot on Amazon.

The biggest dispute to this claim was the release of Gran Turismo 5 in the beginning of November. Retail website, Shop.to, pointed out to us that GT 5 is on top of their preorder charts, stealing the spot from Black Ops.

While a majority of numbers already pointed to Black Ops blowing up the competition, I would refute this claim with the release of Gran Turismo 5, however that has now been delayed. With the game's biggest competition now being delayed, preorders for Call of Duty: Black Ops just skyrocketed.

We spoke to an employee at our local Play 'N Trade who told us that several people came in and switched their preorders from Gran Turismo 5 to Call of Duty: Black Ops. Claiming that the $59.99 just opened up and the delay essentially made the decision for them.

This is going to be a very interesting holiday season, with massive hitting games coming to shelves. With the recent delay of Gran Turismo 5, I have no reason to believe CoD: Black Ops won't destroy the current champion: Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 (which sold 11.86 million copies by the end of 2009).

What do you think? Did the delay just solidify the position Black Ops already had? Or will die hard fans of GT 5 stay strong?