Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has set its first record.
The game’s first day sales of more than $400 million and more than 6.5 million units in North America and the United Kingdom, surpasses last year’s one-day sales record for Call of Duty: Black Ops of $360 million and the 2009 mark of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 of $310 million, Activision Publishing announced citing Charttrack and retail customer sell-through information.
The trifecta takes Call of Duty into rarified air, says Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick: “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.”
Life-to-date sales for the Call of Duty franchise exceed worldwide theatrical box office for the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings films, he says. “Other than Call of Duty, there has never been another entertainment franchise that has set opening day records three years in a row,” he said in a statement with the news release on Call of Duty sales.
The game also set a new peak for the number of players simultaneously on Xbox Live, according to Microsoft.
In a separate announcement, Activision has donated $3 million to the Call of Duty Endowment, a non-profit corporation created by Kotick in 2009 to assist veterans with training and job placement.
