Modern Warfare 3 enjoyed "the biggest entertainment launch ever" with an estimated sell-through of more than $400 million and more than 6.5 million units in the US and UK alone in its first 24 hours of availability.
It marks the third consecutive year that the Call of Duty franchise has set day one launch records across all forms of entertainment, following similar successes by last year's Black Ops (estimated day-one sell-through of $360 million) and 2009's Modern Warfare 2 (sell through of $310 million).
Activision said earlier this week that over 1.5 million people attended 13,000 Modern Warfare 3 midnight store openings globally in order to pick up the game first thing at launch.
"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," said Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick.
"Other than Call of Duty, there has never been another entertainment franchise that has set opening day records three years in a row. Life-to-date sales for the Call of Duty franchise exceed worldwide theatrical box office for Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, two of the most successful entertainment franchises of all time."
Activision Publishing boss Eric Hirshberg added: "Call of Duty is more than a game. It's become a major part of the pop cultural landscape. It is a game that core enthusiasts love, but that also consistently draws new people into the medium.
"It is the most intense, adrenaline pumping entertainment experience anywhere. I would like to thank our incredible teams at Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games for making a brilliant game. But most of all, I would like to thank our millions of passionate fans worldwide. We made this game for you."
Comments
43 comments so far...
Imdanshort1 on 11 Nov '11 said:
Suck it EA
mogel94 on 11 Nov '11 said:
Just about everybody in my town owns a copy, yet the majority of them probably couldn't even tell you what Halo or Uncharted are and some of them don't even know what Mario is.
adamnaz on 11 Nov '11 said:
Great I suppose this means there will be more call of duty's, just bloody brilliant, thank you very much all you damn 10 year olds!
oh well it could be worse, at least you know when you spend £40 you get the complete full game and they wont charge you for any extra's.... oh wait.
MrPirtniw on 11 Nov '11 said:
What's a Mario?
I guess CoD is sorta like the Justin Bieber of gaming.
KK-Headcharge78 on 11 Nov '11 said:
That would be funny if it were not so stupid
Nice try though. Anyway I'm out of here before the usual turgid borefest of haters ensues................. again.
Moribundman on 11 Nov '11 said:
I feel sorry for Todd Howard, announcing 11/11/11 so definitively at the Spike awards last year. Little did he know...
And with AC: Revelations and Halo Anniversary out on Tuesday and Mario, Battlefield, Uncharted 3, Gears 3, Batman and FIFA still selling like hot cakes there has got to be some sort of record being broken for units shipped in one week AND Metacritic averages acrosss this week and next weeks top 10!
zombiesinmyhead on 11 Nov '11 said:
I was prowling around the city centre on launch day during my lunch break (picking up my copy for a tenner), and there were blokes who were like my Dad's age sporting MW3 bags walking out of GAME and talking about K/D ratios in the street. It was a bit mental. Nothing else, and I mean nothing, gets coverage like that.
mogel94 on 11 Nov '11 said:
If only I were joking
but having played a bit of the game I gotta say its probably the best one since COD4.
Moribundman on 11 Nov '11 said:
I tell you what - if every single one of us 7 million bought every single one of those (special edition or console bundle where applicable) as a day one purchase Keynes would suggest we'd be waving bye bye to this f**king recession (as well as our months pay).
And still they won't give devs tax breaks. c**ts.
TheLastDodo on 11 Nov '11 said:
Is that shipped or sold?
Someone had to
I think it actually deserves the success this time, for me it's the best CoD since CoD4, if anyone was put off by the disasterpiece that was Black Ops I'd suggest you give MW3 a try, the multiplayer for me is a nice mix of the gun on gun of CoD4 with the killstreaks of MW2, only toned down.
humanhand on 11 Nov '11 said:
*moves head back and forth in the NO motion*
Agent75 on 11 Nov '11 said:
Good news for me this. Just waiting for a s**tload of these to be part exed. Shooters are not worth the money new. Plus I've been told it doesn't take long to complete. Gaming these days is cheaper than ever
Budly Moore on 11 Nov '11 said:
Well deserved I say, it's popular because it's good, just like Justin Bieber.
smascherano on 11 Nov '11 said:
It was inevitable really wasn't it?
I'm glad I only rented it to be honest. The campaign is awful and just feeds on the Americans paranoia that Russia are going to try and take over everything. The graphics haven't really changed much and the explosions are laughable and the play through is slightly predictable with all the breaching and shooting (once you've seen one breach you have seen them all and it gets old after the first couple). The sound has improved but it still has the problem of the guns sounding too familiar to eachother
With so many people buying it, it now means that Activision are going to carry on rehashing the game and selling it at a higher price than you would with nearly every other game. I'm sure that some of these buildings in the MP maps have been in earlier titles? some of it seems just too familiar. I'm sort of enjoying the multiplayer but it does nothing different that enhances the gameplay more over the first MW that's now 5 years+ old. A few extra game modes and more killstreaks could of easily put on MW1 or 2 as an extra DLC. I see they haven't changed the overpowered, over utilised Sniper rifle which, in the right hands dominates matches and ruins it and the buildings at times look like just cardboard cut outs.
I'm sending it back in a few more days and I think I'll just stick to COD4 instead. I can't justify buying at that price and I struggle to see how anyone could. What does it really do what COD4 didnt that makes it better? It just feels better and the maps are more balanced for both Long and short range combat.
Who ever likes it, fine, enjoy it but with another COD coming next year, how do you see Activions vision for the game changing to what they have already done over the past 5 instalments ?
JBoo on 11 Nov '11 said:
Reading the internet you would think the US & UK are the only places on Earth lol
Cogglesz on 11 Nov '11 said:
When it says Entertainment launch record, does that include things like dvd's and cinema viewings etc? if so then thats a major achievement for gaming alltogether.
StonecoldMC on 11 Nov '11 said:
Props to IW, Sledgehammer and Acti.
Like it or not, this is Biggest Franchise in Gaming, simple as that.
Really good Game that million of people enjoy the world over, there all wrong though, right, right?
Beebop10 on 11 Nov '11 said:
As popular as the Twilight movies and about as good.
Imdanshort1 on 11 Nov '11 said:
Right! People on here can't say oh its sh*t and its just dlc for £45. Well you might think that but the other 90% of the world love it and good on Activision. If it was not for them and COD4 you all would be playing a lot sh*tter games, COD4 paved the way for what games are today and i for one respect that and think COD is allowed a free ride for a few more years
TheLastDodo on 11 Nov '11 said:
That's debatable.
I'd still consider one of your favourites to be as big as, if not bigger than CoD.
Imdanshort1 on 11 Nov '11 said:
TheLastDodo. How comes Elder Scrolls isnt on your xmas list?
StonecoldMC on 11 Nov '11 said:
I would agree with you to an extent, however over the last 2/3 years COD really has just exploded, I didnt buy the Game on release, my partner did (aint I lucky) and she walked into Game to buy it and asked the guy behid the counter "Is this the Game (holding a copy of MW3 in her hands)?" and they guy just said "Yeah, thats the one."
GTA is undoubtedly a Huge Franchise as well, but as far as sales and pop culture in general I would say that COD has overtaken R* Norths baby, especially seeing as it is now an annual event, unlike GTA.
smascherano on 11 Nov '11 said:
I don't think it's sh*t but it is just DLC for £45. All they've done since the excellent COD4 is add some stupid over the top kill streaks, and each campaign has become more over the top, yet worse. They added Spec ops, or Zombies which keeps you occupied for an extra couple of hours but nothing else has really changed. The graphics are poor, even if it is at 60fps, the sounds and even some buildings are all rehashed and the guns feel and sound way too similar. The Sniper rifles, (some of them anyway) if you keep pressing shoot it fires like a machine gun. The maps haven't really improved and are less memorable since COD4.
They haven't done enough to improve the game over the past 5 years and I fail to see how anyone like Activision can justify such a high price for a game that lacks depth and is basically a simple run and gun shooter with a crap story attached. The multiplayer is addictive, but for the price I would want far more than what they offer. In a way it's just like what happened with Guitar hero. The same basic and addictive gameplay in each instalment, but the songs were crap and the DLC music was overpriced and again not great.
They have become complacent and lazy, but it seems there aren't enough level headed gamers that see it (mainly the kids that get it and the parents pay for it) and they'll just carry on the same for next years COD.
mogel94 on 11 Nov '11 said:
In a few years it'll be bigger than Christmas and Easter combined
lmimmfn on 11 Nov '11 said:
its s**t
KesMonkey on 11 Nov '11 said:
@StoneColdMC: I know a fat little Italian plumber that might disagree with you.
@Imdanshort1:Pulling a figure like 90% out of your ass doesn't help you make your case. There are approximately 100 million Xbox and PS3 owners combined, 80 million Wii owners, and Intel recently estimated that there are around 300 million PC gamers. So, out of (approx) nearly 500 million gamers who own a platform that MW3 is available for, the only sales figure we have so far (6.5 million) is just over 1%, not 90%. Yes, the game may well go on to sell 30 or 40 million copies worldwide, but it might not. And, even if it hits 50 million, that's only (again, approx) 10% of potential gamers that will have purchased it. What was that you were saying about 90%?
On topic: That is an impressive initial sales figure. I wonder if it will go on to outsell Black Ops?
thedubster on 11 Nov '11 said:
I agreed with you right up to that point
They've had their rest after the hard work of changing the gaming world
It would have been very hard, nay impossible for the new team to build a new engine for MW3 and that was never the plan anyway
But they've proved they can deliver a quality game, so let them loose on the next IW COD game in 2 years' time - but insist it's built from the ground up
adam7651 on 11 Nov '11 said:
I find it annoying that most (if not all) of the comments i see on MW3 news/videos is hate messages. ITS A DAMN FINE GAME and everyone has jumped on the i hate COD band wagon
please people GIVE IT A CHANCE its one of the best games this year!
nathar on 11 Nov '11 said:
If thats how activision are manipulating their figures these days, well done to them for getting so much press.
I wonder if we will get a similar triumphant message off Notch next week when Minecraft gets released stating they shipped over 4 million copies on the day of release, with a further 12 million registering an account?
Imdanshort1 on 11 Nov '11 said:
Im pretty sure that just included all the beta people having there accounts counted as on when it was out of beta not day one
Padua on 11 Nov '11 said:
This is the way to save the Eurozone - forget throwing money at Greece and Italy : BUY OUT ACTIVISION
Sammy_bham on 11 Nov '11 said:
yes, graphcally its the same.
yes, it has the same engine
yes, it feels like mw2. (s**tops was terrible)
but,it is actaully rather good.
multiplayer is more balance,campaign is over the top (doesnt take tself too seriously) fun. special ops is top notch and the best feature of the game, survival is great fun with a friend. for 38 quid. its great value, a good game (by no means the best game ever). and will provide 200 + hours of entertainment.
but... i have stopped playing it, as i got Skyrim at midnight launch in birmingham gamestation last night, and got loads of free goodies too! whoop.
TheLastDodo on 11 Nov '11 said:
Because I bought it a few hours ago, along with Uncharted 3
Mmmmgrolsch on 11 Nov '11 said:
£45 DLC on a disc for £45
I get bored after about 200hrs online but the next ones always gets me hooked again for another 200hrs or so except W@W was I wasn't a fan of that game.
Anyway OT it's not surprising considering that its now probably the most recognised entertainment franchise in the world. I think they've done a great job with MW3 such an improvement on MW2. I expected this one to be the worst CoD and was expecting it to be a broken mess but I was pleasantly surprised.
I really don't think the series needs to have a overhaul like some seem to think. The game play is rock solid. They really should be giving us dedicated servers though and charge less for DLC. As I will never ever buy any map packs, the prices are atrocious.
ted1138 on 11 Nov '11 said:
What's a "Justin Bieber"?
WorldGames on 11 Nov '11 said:
Over 400mil on day 1 OMG and a brilliant game too and its better than most of us expected ( A GREAT FORMULA JUST GOT BETTER ).
MrPirtniw on 11 Nov '11 said:
A kind of ear infection I think.
jm3811 on 12 Nov '11 said:
"Activision said earlier this week that over 1.5 million people attended 13,000 Modern Warfare 3 midnight store openings globally in order to pick up the game first thing at launch."
It's because people who play Mario Galaxy have a life and have other things to do at night.
ted1138 on 12 Nov '11 said:
That's a relief, I thought it might be something nasty, like a "Cleveland Steamer"...
Latetzki on 12 Nov '11 said:
Remember when CoD was an brilliant FPS?
heatho on 12 Nov '11 said:
it may have broke a record, but that doesn't mean its good , its probably the 2nd or 3rd worst COD. if you go on the link you'll see what people really think of this cheap piece of s**t, yes i admit u can start tou get into it but then you are brought back to reality when you shoot soemone 8 times in the head and they dont die(just hitmarkers) little things like this p**s me off
http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360 ... er-reviews
Warrior24_7 on 12 Nov '11 said:
Zepf on 12 Nov '11 said:
Well done to IW and Sledgehammer. Very good game and deserves all the success it gets.