Activision’s Call of Duty series has again topped the games charts within days of launching, with Black Ops 2 already crowned as the biggest games launch of 2012.
A huge number of games were sold in the first 24 hours alone, raking in an astonishing half a billion dollars in sales on launch day alone. Black Ops 2 launched on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC last week, and will also launch on the Nintendo Wii U before Christmas.
Black Ops 2 – or ‘BLOPS 2’ as it’s become affectionately known – outsold the previous title in the series Modern Warfare 3, which sold 400,000 copies in its first day last year. The latest title makes it four years in a row for Activision, who has enjoyed back to back “biggest game launch of the year” titles.
Activision hasn’t yet shared exactly how many copies have been sold, though it is expected to in the very near future. However, CEO Bobby Kotick did proudly announce that with the launch of Black Ops 2, the Call of Duty franchise has become larger than the world’s biggest movie franchises – Harry Potter and Star Wars.
We needed a moment to take that in for a second; Call of Duty is bigger than Star Wars, Death Star and all.
“With first day sales of over half a billion dollars worldwide, we believe Call of Duty is the biggest entertainment launch of the year for the fourth year in a row,” said Bobby Kotick, CEO, Activision Blizzard, Inc.
“Life-to-date sales for the Call of Duty franchise have exceeded worldwide theatrical box office receipts for ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Star Wars,’ the two most successful movie franchises of all time. Given the challenged macro-economic environment, we remain cautious about the balance of 2012 and 2013.”
Black Ops 2 has sold well and received good reviews in its first week, although the same can’t be said for the PS Vita version, Black Ops Declassified.
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