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Black Ops Breaks Records
Call of Duty: Black Ops is doing well for itself, and Activision wants everyone to know. During a five-day post-launch window, Black Ops broke all theatrical box office, book, and video game sales records worldwide. It’s obviously an impressive feat, even though price discrepancies make comparing movie and book sales to that of video games like apples to oranges.
Want the numbers? According to internal Activision estimates, sales have exceeded $650 million, topping the $550 million set by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
“Call of Duty has become the first entertainment property in history to set five-day launch records for two consecutive years across all forms of entertainment,” said Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard. “The title's success illustrates the mass appeal of interactive entertainment as millions of consumers are choosing to play Call of Duty: Black Ops at unprecedented levels rather than engage in other forms of media. The number of people playing online and the number of hours they are playing demonstrates how online gaming has become a mainstream form of entertainment and certainly validates Activision Blizzard's leadership role in online entertainment.”
Black Ops is also breaking Xbox Live records. According to Microsoft, more than 5.9 million multiplayer hours were recorded by the end of launch day, logged by some 2.6 million unique gamers.
“There are many reasons for the success of Black Ops, but first and foremost is the fact that our team at Treyarch delivered a truly awesome game, and in the process have established themselves as one of the most talented developers in the world,” said Eric Hirshberg, CEO at Activision Publishing. “There are millions of people all over the world engaging in this community. It's our job to keep them coming back for more.”
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