Halo 4 set its own little record for the franchise last week when it sold $220 million worth of games on its first day of release. Still, that didn’t stop Activision from trudging its own path in sales this week for Call of Duty: Black Ops II.
The company has announced that the game made $500 million on its first day of release, easily trumping the $400 million record that was put in place by Modern Warfare 3 the year before.
The game sold one million copies at GameStop alone, and Amazon stated that it was the company’s most pre-ordered game ever.
“With first day sales of over half a billion dollars worldwide, we believe Call of Duty is the biggest entertainment launch of the year for the fourth year in a row,” said Bobby Kotick, CEO, Activision Blizzard, Inc. “Life-to-date sales for the Call of Duty franchise have exceeded worldwide theatrical box office receipts for “Harry Potter” and “Star Wars,” the two most successful movie franchises of all time. Given the challenged macro-economic environment, we remain cautious about the balance of 2012 and 2013.”
“Call of Duty has become more than a product people buy, it’s become a brand people buy into. And every November we do more than just launch a game, we kick off an annual, unofficial but worldwide phenomenon called Call of Duty season,” said Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing. “I want to thank our incredible team at Treyarch for making an amazing game, everyone at Activision for making this brand a force of nature and our retail partners for their unprecedented support of this franchise. But most importantly I want to thank our millions of fans for their continued support and loyalty and for making us better every day.”
Expect sales number to be on the rise in the weeks ahead, particularly with the Wii U version releasing this Sunday.
Published: Nov 16, 2012 05:54 pm