The games industry is supposed to be in a bit of a slump right now, so it’s quite an achievement that the highly anticipated Activision Blizzard Call of Duty episode, Modern Warfare 2 has outsold virtually every entertainment event in history with its first 24 hours of sales ‘ raking in some $310 million (£186 million) just in the US and here in the UK.
Like US TV shows Lost, Desperate Housewives and Heroes, it shows that second and third sequels and so on are the way to go in games, and the previous record holder was last year’s ‘Grand Theft Auto IV,’ which until last week was the most successful video game release in history selling 3.6 million units on its opening day. We think this is Activision’s 5th episode of the game (the second in the line of Modern Warfare extensions) and its opening day sold 4.7 million copies in just North America and the United Kingdom, according to internal figures.
Modern Warfare 2 was released on Tuesday, November 10th through over 10,000 retail outlets in the US alone which held midnight openings to meet consumer demand.
‘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.’
At least one independent chart (VGChartz) made a stab at global numbers saying that opening day figures could have been as high as 7 million copies with around 55% of sales on the Xbox 360, 33% on PS3 and the remaining 12% on PC with 4.2 million units sold in the Americas (3.7 million USA), 1.2 million in the UK and 350,000 each in France and Germany.
Modern Warfare 2 is a follow on from the events of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which was a top selling first person action game and the new version is rated ‘M’ (Mature) so lots of blood and guts.
Just to be sure that the opening day was bigger than any film, the holder of that stands at around $155 million, but that’s for an entire weekend, and it goes to the Batman movie ‘The Dark Knight’ last year. That was in about 4,000 or so Cinemas, so nothing like the 10,000 or so games stores, so it’s a tough comparison. However games are generally understood to be outranking films in total revenues these days.