November 16, 2011 by Vinnie Leduc
After breaking its own one-day record with 6.5 million copies sold in its first 24 hours, Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 smashed another one record previously held by its predecessor. Activision announced that the blockbuster shooter has sold 12.3 million units in its first week and has raked in $738 million in that time, prompting CEO Bobby Kotick to state, “We believe the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is the biggest entertainment launch of all time in any medium, and we achieved this record with sales from only two territories.”
This record, of course, is based on gross revenue, not the number of copies or tickets sold, but it’s impressive nevertheless, so go ahead and keep tootin’ your horn, Bobby boy. Well, don’t mind if he does. In a press release, Kotick added, “This marks the third consecutive year that the Call of Duty franchise has set launch records across all forms of entertainment, something no other entertainment franchise in any medium has ever accomplished.”
Is that it? No. Activision added that “according to Microsoft, after just two days, the number of gamers playing simultaneously on Xbox Live set a new peak concurrency record.” Seven million copies were sold for the Xbox 360, 4.8 million for the PlayStation 3, and the remaining were split between the Wii and PC.
Did you help contribute to Modern Warfare 3‘s historic debut like I did, and will you do so again when the inevitable next iteration returns next year?
