- Photo: Activision
No surprise here, Modern Warfare 3 has once again destroyed sales records in only its first five days of release, nearly generating $1 billion and somehow surpassing its wildly successful predecessor, Black Ops.
Activision does it again
It seems like Activision’s Call of Duty franchise can do no wrong, with each successive title performing even more remarkably than the one before it. When it was launched back in 2009, CoD Modern Warfare 2 went on a sales rampage, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars in its first day of release and crushing records. It then spent months on end in first place on the UK charts. As successful as MW2 was, Black Ops, released the following year, did even better and was in fact crowned the UK’s most successful video game, ever. Well, as though the bar couldn’t have been set any higher, Activision reports that Modern Warfare 3 has again exceeded the sales of its two predecessors and beaten expectations.
More successful than Harry Potter
According to Activision, CoD Modern Warfare 3 sold $775 million in only its first five days of availability, making it not only the most successful gaming launch of all time, but the most successful for any kind of media, including films or books. The $775 mil figure is also significantly more than Black Ops before it (which made 650 mil during the same time), as well as MW2 (which ‘only’ made 550 mil during that time period).
Record breaking online stats too
The sales stats were also backed up by online usage figures, with Microsoft reporting that Xbox Live players logged 7 million hours of play time at launch, with up to 3.3 million people also playing online at once. Both of the aforementioned stats are improvements over Black Ops. The MW3 PS3 version was likewise was extremely popular online, and actually set the record for the most amount of players on the PlayStation network in one day.
Not best ever UK launch
What about CoD MW3′s UK specific performance? Apparently, Modern Warfare 3 failed to defeat Black Ops’ actual sales stats at launch, shifting only 2 million units in Blighty, which is a slight 1.6% decline from Black Ops’ performance. In terms of revenue, however, MW3 seems to have just edged out Black Ops. So, CoD Black Ops still holds the honour of having the UK’s best launch, although, if sales for MW3 persist, Black Ops could easily lose its title as Britain’s most successful game of all time.
Series getting stale?
Of course, even as Activision joyfully rakes in the profits, and millions of gamers worldwide rush out to buy the latest Call of Duty titles, many are questioning the game’s strategy of releasing a new title each year. With Modern Warfare 3, especially, there have been concerns that it doesn’t really add much to the franchise and offers very little in the way of innovation. To many, MW3 feels more like an expansion, which makes sense, given that it only took one year to develop. Most games typically take 2-3 years to make (look at the time gaps in making the Mass Effect series), whereas expansions are developed in one year or less.
Will you get the next one?
What about you? Are you happy with the direction that Modern Warfare is going in, or are you a bit sick of the series? And will you buy the next CoD instalment, when Activision invariably releases it one year from now in November?
