Modern Warfare 2 Breaks Biggest Record Yet
Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® 2 Shatters Opening Day Sales Records With Approximately $310 Million in North America and United Kingdom Alone
Activision Publishing, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) announced today that Infinity Ward’s much-anticipated Call of Duty®:Modern Warfare® 2 has become the biggest launch in history across all forms of entertainment, with estimated sell-through sales of $310 million in North America and the United Kingdom in the first 24 hours alone, according to internal Activision estimates.
Modern Warfare 2 was released on Tuesday, November 10th, to worldwide fanfare across the globe, including over 10,000 retail outlets in the U.S. alone, which held midnight openings to meet consumer demand. In its first day, the blockbuster title sold through approximately 4.7 million copies in just North America and the United Kingdom, according to internal Activision estimates.
“The Call of Duty franchise has become a cultural phenomenon showing the power of video games as an entertainment medium,” said Mike Griffith, CEO, Activision Publishing, Inc. “The shattering of these entertainment records is a testament to the compelling, cinematic and uniquely engaging experience that the Call of Duty brand delivers. Modern Warfare 2 has taken interactive experience to unprecedented heights setting a new standard for entertainment.”
Modern Warfare 2 picks up following the historic events of Call of Duty® 4: Modern Warfare®, the blockbuster title that remains the top selling first person action game in history. Modern Warfare 2 is rated “M” (Mature) by the ESRB for Blood, Drug References, Intense Violence and Language. For additional information about the game, visit www.modernwarfare2.com.
13 Responses to “Modern Warfare 2 Breaks Biggest Record Yet”
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November 14th, 2009 at 10:11 AM
Insane numbers…glad I wasn’t one of the contributors.
Too busy playing Uncharted 2, Dragon Age, NBA2K10, and Tekken 6.
November 14th, 2009 at 10:28 AM
This is good and bad.
Good: The $$$ proves that Hardcore gamers still drive the industry.
Bad: The $$$, which can’t be ignored by corporations that have no business in the gaming melee are all but DARED to try to make games for the cash. That bring weak games. Or worse, CASUAL games that become popular.
November 14th, 2009 at 10:37 AM
great, now activision will drop a COD every other month now
November 14th, 2009 at 10:48 AM
Odium_Generis – I don’t really understand how you can say that the $$$ proves that Hardcore gamers drive the industry…while I’m sure a lot of hardcore gamers bought the game, Modern Warfare is about as mainstream as you can get…everyone wants it just because it’s not cool to be without it. I’m not saying it isn’t worthy of the sales it achieved, but I think most of the sales were generated by the casual gamers, the ones that are also still in love with Halo or have played nothing but Call of Duty since they came out. I don’t think there are even enough hardcore gamers left anymore to be able to support a game like this if they wanted to.
November 14th, 2009 at 10:50 AM
As much as I’ve been disturbed by Activision’s greed and industry disgrace, this is actually a very solid game. I have yet to complain about any part of it, and I totally support INFINITY WARD for this because they did a phenomenal job!!!
November 14th, 2009 at 11:39 AM
this one might black friday @ $39.95, then I’ll pull the trigger.
November 14th, 2009 at 11:52 AM
I added $79.99 to that total. I bought the Hardened Edition.
November 14th, 2009 at 1:42 PM
@Odium_Generis
How does mw2 making a lot of money inspire somone to make a weak game, or “casual” that becomes popular(what the hell is wrong with that? sudoku is(was?) popular and each puzzle is about as deep as a kiddie pool.)?
If anything it lets people know you need to get your shit together if you want to make a game that can top it. This ‘could’ only inspire people to make a game purely for profits if they were already in that train of thought. It’s not like every dev out there is gonna drop what they’re doing to make call of destiny modern warzone or something
November 14th, 2009 at 3:46 PM
What I really want to konw is the “independent” numbers, not the estimates from the company selling the game. I don’t trust numbers that could be self-serving to any company. I have seen it before with M$ saying X number of computers have Windows installed but they were all sitting in the warehouse of the vendor waiting to be delivered and sold, or the installed base for IE when IE was a clone of Netscape at the time and the identifiers for browsers were the same. I am tired of this type of “Hype” so give me the real numbers not estimates from the Company selling the game, I don’t know that all of those games are in the hands of gamers and not just sitting on the shelves of retailers or in their warehouses…
And no I have not purchased the game because of what I have seen from the Online community, ie games take a week, two weeks, maybe more to settle down and the servers become stable enough. Plus I wait for some prices to come down…GREATEST HITS anyone???
November 14th, 2009 at 6:46 PM
@giese095
how can you not say that the hardcorre is driving the industry. l’m not seeing a lot of casual players saying “Hey l need to get MW2 now,” l’m not even sure they know what MW2 is all about anyways. Odium_Generis is correct in saying the hardcore do drive the industry
November 15th, 2009 at 12:59 PM
So this took down MGS4? What stat was it that that held, biggest ps3 launch?
November 24th, 2009 at 6:06 PM
Cool.
December 19th, 2009 at 4:07 AM
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