For the fourth year in a row, a new Call of Duty game has set some kind of sales record. This year, Activision is proud to announce that Call of Duty: Black Ops II has set the new standard for the first day sales of an “entertanment launch.”
According to Activision’s internal estimates and retail costumer information, Call of Duty: Black Ops II earned more than $500 million in worldwide sales on Tuesday, November 13. At $60 a game, that averages out to over 8.25 million copies sold. This bests the previous one day sales record, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which scored $400 million in worldwide day one sales last year.
The previous holder of the “biggest game launch of 2012” title only managed to hold the record for seven days. Halo 4 debuted to $220 million in worldwide sales on November 6 and would go on to add an additional $80 million throughout its first week of availability. But all those statistics are only good for second place now.
While Black Ops II may have made the most money for an “entertainment launch” in a single day, it failed to reach as many people as 2011’s most popular movie. In North America alone, over 11 million tickets to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 were sold on July 15, 2011, giving it a one-day box office total of $91 million and an edge of three million people over Call of Duty: Black Ops II.
