News

Modern Warfare 2 Sells Nearly Five Million Copies In A Day

According to “internal Activision estimates”, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 didn’t just have a good launch, it had “the biggest launch in history across all forms of entertainment”.

This claim is based on sell-through sales, with Activision bean-counters reporting the game managed to pull in $US310 million in its first 24 hours on sale. And that’s not a worldwide number, that’s just in North America and the UK. $US310 million. In a single day.

Sure, games cost more than a movie ticket, but $US310 million in 24 hours is still a mighty impressive number, regardless of the admission price.

That $US310 million was earned off the back of an estimated 4.7 million units sold, another frightening number when you consider it’s again excluding PAL sales.

Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)

  • My mind is blow! I Just can’t fathom it. My hats off to them, I haven’t even bought the game yet XD.

  • plmko

    Holy cow, advertisement campaigns work.

    • formulated

      or lack there of.

  • TiM

    Wow. If I’m reading Wikipedia right, that’s more than double of what Halo 3 did on its first release day!

  • Deadlydorito

    how did this game sell in japan?

  • Sabmac

    Damn you, my boycott mattered!

  • @TiM: Well that’s what happens when you launch of PC, PS3 and 360 and not just one platform.

    • blake

      yeah, even if its just a port to the pc… *facepalm* (no im not having a go at the multiplayer, I think its great. I just wish that what started as a game for the pc stayed a game for the pc :|)

  • doubleDizz

    Holy crap.
    Does this mean video games are officially more profitable than films?

    • Well, we’re yet to find out (if ever) how *profitable* the game is :)

    • greg

      thats been the case for a few years now actually

    • Jay

      Publishers/Devs don’t really disclose information on the budget of their games and marketing etc…

      Usually its predicited. They said GTA IV was upwards of $100 million and that made $300 million on day one. $500 million on first week.

      Halo 3 was predicted to be around the $50 million and made over $150 million day one and over $300 million first week. Now i would assume these are budgets for producing the game and not including marketing cause i heard that Halo 3 was over $25 million with advertising & endorsements.

      IMO- MW2 wouldn’t be anywhere near $100 million. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was less than $50million. It had less development time than Halo and GTA and the marketing wasn’t anything like the others. Here in Aus i saw nothing except for online and in GAMING stores. I mean Assassins 2 has TV Commercials and saw NOTHING for MW2.

      To me it seems like a game that was done of a cheaper budget but thats not describing the game in anyway. I would imagine Assassins having a larger budget.

    • GmBH

      Are games more profitable than films? Maybe if you look at blockbusters but if you look at the comedy / indy space then not at all.

      Napoleon Dynamite made a ratio of something like 117 so if Modern Warfare 2 cost $50 mill to make it would need to Gross $5.8 Billion to be in the same ball park.

  • Pixx

    Good on em’. Game deserves it.

  • Snacuum

    The game industry is ruined.

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