The two most-played games on Xbox Live are Call of Duty games, with Halo Reach in the third spot, according to the first Xbox Live popularity ranking released after several data-free weeks from Microsoft.
Call of Duty Black Ops tops the list of unique users playing games on Xbox Live for the week of November 8, with last year's Modern Warfare 2 (Call of Duty VI, to some) in the second spot. Halo Reach is third. Black Ops came out on November 9, meaning it beat Modern Warfare 2 in its first week, while Halo Reach did not in its.
Larry Hryb, the man known to Xbox gamers as Major Nelson, brought his weekly list back today, citing a busy schedule for its absence. Here's the Xbox Live part of it.
Xbox 360 Top LIVE Titles (based on UU's)
1 Call of Duty: Black Ops
2 Modern Warfare 2
3 Halo: Reach
4 FIFA Soccer 11
5 Fable III
6 Fallout: New Vegas
7 Call of Duty: WaW
8 Madden NFL 11
9 Call of Duty 4
10 Halo 3
11 NBA 2K11
12 GTA IV
13 Red Dead Redemption
14 Gears of War 2
15 Battlefield: Bad Co. 2
16 Kinect Adventures!
17 Medal of Honor
18 NHL 11
19 Forza Motorsport 3
20 FIFA 10
With the return of these rankings, we'll be able to see how long two games from the same series can hold those top spot and whether Black Ops can continue to outperform its older brother.
LIVE Activity for week of Nov 8 [Major Nelson's blog] [Black Ops player activity map via a Kotaku reader]