Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Sets Five-Day Sales Record

In case you haven't gotten it through your skull that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is selling well, Activision has sent out another batch of statistics. It seems the game earned $775 million worldwide in its first five days, the highest five-day total ever attained by a game, film, or book.

Modern Warfare 3's $775 million shatters the previous record of $650 million, which had been set by Call of Duty: Black Ops last fall. Black Ops' total, in turn, bested Modern Warfare 2's record of $550 million. In other words, Activision's got the gold, silver and bronze medals now.

MW3 earned $400 million of that take on its launch day, November 8th. That was also a record. The second and third highest launch days were recorded by - you guessed it - Black Ops and MW2.

Need more statistics? Well, apparently the game set records for Xbox Live and PSN usage on its first day. Here are a couple numbers from Xbox Live:

  • More than 7.0 million multiplayer hours were logged playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 by the end of launch day, November 8, a 19% increase over last year's 5.9 million multiplayer hours logged playing Call of Duty: Black Ops last year's launch day.
  • More than 3.3 million unique gamers played Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in one day on November 8 up from 2.6 million unique gamers for Call of Duty: Black Ops.

"With $775 million of sales of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in its first five days, Call of Duty has become the first entertainment property in history to set five-day launch records for three consecutive years across all forms of entertainment," said Robert Kotick, Activision Blizzard ceo. "Life-to-date retail sales for the Call of Duty franchise have exceeded $6 billion worldwide, which makes Call of Duty one of the most valuable entertainment properties in the world. We expect continued sales momentum, as reviews and audience enthusiasm suggest that this is the best Call of Duty game that we have ever made. Online play for Modern Warfare 3 is at record levels and we continue to see high online play for both Call of Duty: Black Ops and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which ranked as the #2 and #4 top-played Xbox LIVE games for the week of November 7, according to Major Nelson."

Should you add your $60 to Activision's pile of money? Read our review to find out.

Pete Haas

Staff Writer at CinemaBlend.