For the third year in a row, Activision's Call of Duty franchise shattered the five-day sale record for any entertainment property by making $775 million in that time span. This time, it's the recently released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 breaking the record, like Black Ops and Modern Warfare 2 before it. It's the first entertainment property to ever break this record for three consecutive years, according to a press release.
To put that in perspective: With $775 million dollars, you could solve Chicago's budget deficit problems and still have about enough to take a trip to the moon. Of course, Activision expects the cash cow shooter to keep delivering.
"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," said Bobby Kotick, Activision Blizzard CEO, in the press release. "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."
Aside from breaking sales records, Modern Warfare 3 is also breaking Xbox Live and PlayStation Network records. The game broke both networks' records for simultaneous users on launch day (Nov. 8), and multiplayer gamers logged more than seven million hours of play on Xbox Live that same day.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you weren't already aware, it appears Call of Duty isn't going anywhere anytime soon. We can endlessly debate the game's "gamer cred," but at some point we have to admit the game must be doing something right to be able to sell this absurd amount of copies.
