How many times does a game gross more than three-quarters of a billion dollars in less than a week?
Can’t think of a number? That’s because the answer is zero. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has broken yet another sales record by raking in an unfathomable $775 million in the five days since its release.
That breaks the previous record holder for first-week sales. And if you guessed that the previous record holder was also Call of Duty, you’d be right. The franchise’s “Black Ops” game that was released last year took in $650 million in its initial five days.
We’re not just talking video game records here, either. This is more money than any entertainment product has raked in in such a short amount of time. No movie, no music album, nothing has sold more.
“Call of Duty [is] one of the most valuable entertainment properties in the world. We expect continued sales momentum, as reviews and audience enthusiasm suggest that this is the best Call of Duty game that we have ever made,” said Bobby Kotick, the head of the franchise’s publisher Activision.
Activision also released other mind-blowing statistics on how many people have been playing the game on Xbox Live, including:
– 7 million online multiplayer hours were logged in the game by the end of launch day
– 3.3 million unique players joined in an online match of Modern Warfare 3 on launch day
– There was at one point 3.3 million simultaneous players on the game’s servers.
All the above are Xbox Live records.
