Activision makes with the corporate gloating today with news that Call of Duty: Black Ops has surpassed $1 billion in worldwide sales since its release in November. That's faster than Modern Warfare 2, but James Cameron still has it beat.
Selling $650 million in the first five days after its November 9 worldwide release, Call of Duty: Black Ops was already well on the way to topping the sales of Modern Warfare 2, breaking the previous installment's record of $550 million soundly. Now Activision says the latest installment in the Call of Duty series has reached the $1 billion worldwide sales milestone far ahead of Modern Warfare 2, which didn't hit the mark until mid-January of last year.
"In all of entertainment, only Call of Duty and "Avatar" have ever achieved the billion dollar revenue milestone this quickly," said Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard. "This is a tribute to the global appeal of the Call of Duty franchise, the exceptional talent at Treyarch and the hundreds of extraordinary people across our many Call of Duty studios including Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer that work tirelessly on the franchise. Our ability to provide the most compelling, immersive entertainment experience, and enhance it with regular, recurring content that delivers hundreds of hours of audience value, has allowed Call of Duty to continue to set sales and usage records."
James Cameron's special effects-laden film Avatar reached the $1 billion sales mark 19 days after its worldwide release on December 18 of last year. The speed is even more impressive when factoring in the price difference between a video game and a movie ticket.
Black Ops players likely have Avatar fans beat in terms of entertainment hours at least, with more than 600 million hours logged playing the game, with Microsoft statistics showing the average player logging in more than once a day to play for longer than an hour at a time, with more than half that time spent playing online with friends.
Will a video game ever beat Avatar's $1 billion speed record?