Modern Warfare 2 makes Activision $310m in 24 hours

Posted by Daniel Bennett on Fri 13 Nov 2009

Activision rakes in the cash

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 experienced the biggest launch of an entertainment product in history, hauling in $310 million in the space of 24 hours in the UK and US alone. It destroyed the previous record held by the film Dark Knight, which earned just over $158 million in the same period of time.

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This amount was generated by 4.7 million units sold, an achievement that is even more impressive considering that the video games market has been in decline in the last year. In the UK 1.2 million copies were sold in the 24 hours following its release, twice the amount Grand Theft Auto IV sold in its first day.

Analysts predict that by Christmas, Activision will have sold nearly 12 million copies of the game. Many game launches were delayed this year, or even brought forward, so as to avoid being crushed by the Modern Warfare phenomenon.

Since its release, the game has been plagued with online difficulties. PC gamers were disappointed with the initial lack of online support, while the PlayStation Network struggled to deal with the sudden flood of online games.

Meanwhile Xbox Live experienced relatively few problems, and even achieved a landmark 2 million users online at the same time.

Link: Call of Duty (via ITProPortal)