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Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 rakes in $310M in one day of sales in the U.S. and U.K.

Activision's recent launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was an overwhelming success, with one-day sales in the United States and United Kingdom raking in an estimated $310 million USD.

In the first 24 hours of launch, Activision estimates it sold 4.7 million copies of the video game.

The video game industry has struggled for more than six months consecutively, with some game executives unsure if the 2009 holiday shopping season would save the industry.  Activision has certainly done its part, with no other games scheduled for release in 2009 expected to come anywhere near the latest CoD video game debut.

Furthermore, November game sales are expected to rebound -- directly because of the Activision game launch -- though no other blockbuster game titles are expected any time soon.

The 2008 launch of Take Two's Grand Theft Auto IV racked up 3.6 million units in sales in the first 24 hours, with game industry analysts anticipating a CoD game launch just as big.

Hollywood blockbusters can make up to $60 million opening weekend, but it's rare to find a video game smash Hollywood movie debuts.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is available for around $60 on Microsoft-powered Windows PCs, Microsoft Xbox 360, and Sony PlayStation 3 game consoles.

Comments     Threshold


In a word...
By bradmshannon on 11/13/2009 8:31:00 AM , Rating: 5
dammit




RE: In a word...
By Gul Westfale on 11/13/2009 9:04:39 AM , Rating: 5
only 18 players instead of the 64 in BF2, and still people buy this shit. damn it, indeed.


RE: In a word...
By Omega215D on 11/13/2009 9:47:11 AM , Rating: 1
I don't know about you but I actually enjoy the single player campaign and story line on the PC version. My brother has the PS3 version but I cannot stand using a controller to play FPSes.

Besides, in Modern Warfare 1 huge maps led to constant spawn killing and nade spamming which got annoying quick, even in the dedicated servers.

I am looking forward to Bad Company 2 if EA decides to make it a proper PC game (unlike the buggy BF2).

Now I just have to beat MW2, FEAR 2, NFS: Shift.... well can't really beat it, and GTA IV. Left 4 Dead 2 will be fun but I'll hold off on it until I get a nice break to play all nighters online.


RE: In a word...
By The0ne on 11/13/2009 9:58:29 AM , Rating: 2
The single/campaign mode has always been fun for me and my family members too. For MoH and CoD we haven't even tried the online gameplay at all. However, for BF we love the online :)

I was mistaken about the sales of Uncharted and MW not going to sell well. Apparently they are for one reason or another. Good to see regardless.

So many good games for PC and so little time to play them! Damn me for not being as young with time to waste anymore :) Well, waste on games hehe


RE: In a word...
By MrBlastman on 11/13/2009 12:24:21 PM , Rating: 5
I have a friend (whom I chastized) who accepted a free copy of the PC version of CoD: MW 2 and tried playing it online... Tried. When I was picking on him over Steam he then went on to describe his playing experience.

Anyone who played games such as Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries, Rainbow Six or Rogue Spear online back in the day already will know how it went--it was horrible. It was peer-2-peer networking in all its glory, well, it was more inglorious than anything.

Basically, it went like this: He'd join a server, the host would have a Zero (0) ping, all others on the server would have between a 100 and 200 ping. The round would start. He'd get hit once or twice (one or two bullets), then suddenly die. The replay would kick in showing how he died and he then saw his character being sprayed for a solid few seconds of full auto fire while being butchered. In other words, a whole magazine was dumped into him. Interesting, right? Well, as it wore on (this was several sessions), he began to realize that if you were on the hosts team, you won ever game, since well, the host has a Zero ping so they hit everything they shoot at well before everything else has a chance to respond.

Swell right?

It gets better. Several times the host would lag out or crash for whatever reason and then all of a sudden, the game code would put someone else in charge as host. The lag would skyrocket due to someone with a crappy connection taking over or some random person living in Uzbekistan would then become the host (I didn't know they had computers in Uzbekistan? Go figure.). Statistically speaking, about 9 out of 16 games led to the host dropping or the lag becoming so FUBAR that it basically caused an end to the session.

So, really, what does all this remind me of? Hmm, memories of Mechwarrior 2 and Rogue Spear come to mind. Specifically, memories of sitting on the blasted MSN Gaming Zone (Worst... online... game... service... ever) waiting to start a game of Rogue Spear, getting in the game, shooting at three people having my bullets go straight through them and then all of a sudden my character keeling over because they weren't in front of me all along... they were actually BEHIND ME! Thank you Peer 2 Peer lag!

So, this is purely conjecture formed from anecdotal ( ;) )evidence but, I think it is solid in its own right. Said individual whom partook in the CoD sessions plays Team Fortress 2 regularly and... never has any problems. It is always perfect.

CoD: MW 2... is a turd online.

Single Player? Sounds great, I hear it is awesome... all 4-5 hours of it. So you are what, paying for 7-8 feature films worth of action and only receiving 2? Deal of the century! Not.


RE: In a word...
By biggsjm on 11/13/09, Rating: 0
RE: In a word...
By MrBlastman on 11/13/2009 1:12:35 PM , Rating: 5
I have no clue--I've not played it. :) I do trust his assumption and can tell you this:

If you are in a peer2peer game, it goes like this:

host->player.a->player.b->player.c->p layer.d---|
^^----------------------------------------------< br />
So you can see, it goes back to the host eventually. Now, the host, the host goes right back to himself right away, so, the host has a... zero ping to himself. Just try pinging 127.0.0.1 and see what you get. ;)

So yes, the host possibly has a 0 ping(depending on how they coded the p2p code, from experience it was exactly this in Rogue Spear, but not in Mechwarrior 2 Mercs). If one guy in the bunch pops in with a 500+ ping (say from another country), he fouls it up for EVERYONE because they are bottlenecked through this one guy. This is why peer 2 peer sucks.

Likewise, if you host a dedicated server out of your home, then use a client in your home to connect to your own server, your ping will be 0 - 5 ms (or something like that) and the players will be, well, whatever their ping is. The connection is more like:

O=server
x=players
| = connection between x and O
. = spacer (because DT doesn't like empty spaces)

..x.....x
...\.../
x--O--x
.../.\
..x...x

As you see, each player will have an individual ping respective of their relationship with just O, the server, rather than their relationship with and through each player. Thus, dedicated servers are superior for this reason alone and many more.


RE: In a word...
By jonmcc33 on 11/13/2009 2:42:58 PM , Rating: 2
I can vouch for that. I play Rainbow Six Vegas 2 and when I do co-op terrorist hunt I always end up with 20-25 kills and the other 3 guests end up with much less. Whenever I join someone hosting it is the same way. The host gets all the kills and guests get squat.


RE: In a word...
By bighairycamel on 11/13/2009 3:29:00 PM , Rating: 2
I think they've moved past the P2P bottelnecking days. I am not claiming to know this as fact so feel free to provide evidence otherwise, but I believe the game is run on a "listen" server where O in your diagram would be the player hosting (think dedicated server except someone is playing on the server as well as hosting). The game would bottleneck if the host had a slow connection, but not if the clients did.


RE: In a word...
By Myg on 11/13/2009 4:40:21 PM , Rating: 3
I think your mixing up p2p with some sort of token ring networking scheme.

Peer to peer generally means that each person has an individual connection to every other individual, thus nullifying any need for a central server during the session (of course there needs to be a system in place to provide all the endpoints for each client for that session)

What your describing is some sort of internal peer relaying system, which would only be usefull for applications that arnt sensitive to latency.

Such systems could be integrated into a p2p based network code, but it would be how the game is made to react to lost packets/waiting for packets/etc is what would define its performance and would end up with such situations that you are describing.


RE: In a word...
By Myg on 11/13/2009 4:48:28 PM , Rating: 2
Just to note: p2p is far superior from a higher level conceptual and long term view then dedicated servers.

One of the largest things stopping p2p from being a mainstay in network design for games is the immense issues caused by home routers/firewalls, since of all the varying makes/models behave differently with no single standard NAT type (a handful of different commonly used ones) it is impossible to account for all of the outstanding networking issues. Not to mention, how much of a nightmare it is to instruct the average Joe to forward ports/etc and expect them to be able to do it.


RE: In a word...
By Strunf on 11/14/2009 8:17:17 PM , Rating: 4
"Just to note: p2p is far superior from a higher level conceptual and long term view then dedicated servers."
Superior in what? when you're sharing data that doesn't change p2p is clearly faster as you receive and transmit data to others at the same time, this is only possible cause everyone knows how many pieces are there and where they start and end, in games that's not the case, by the time you receive some data and want to send it to others it will be pointless for them, in games everyone has to receive the SAME data at the SAME TIME, thats why the most efficient way in games is with a central host be it a server or not.
A server on the internet will always have a better ping to each player than between players, and since the data on the server is always the most recent one you only go play<->server and not player<->server<->player, you just don't care what the others players are doing,.

The thing about routers is not an issue today, UPNP has been out for some years now and most if not all routers support it, the XBox and the PS3 players would be screaming without it.


RE: In a word...
By bighairycamel on 11/13/2009 1:22:41 PM , Rating: 2
I thought the same thing, I heard IWNET just displays bars not ping.

Am I the only PC gamer around here that thinks the amount of b*tching and moaning is absurd? And I don't even plan on getting this for PC.

Don't like it? Don't play it. People need to quit crying over spilled milk already. Obviously it hasn't affected sales.


RE: In a word...
By MrBlastman on 11/13/2009 1:34:37 PM , Rating: 3
I don't play it. I don't plan on buying it. I play Team Fortress 2 frequently so I have no need to put up with a sub-par experience. :)

I will though do my darndest to get the word out to everyone I know. Us PC gamers have been putting up with far too much crap as of late and it has to stop.


RE: In a word...
By Regs on 11/13/2009 3:40:38 PM , Rating: 3
I really don't see it as spilled milk. Modern Warfare built a culture around dedicated servers that were essentially homes away from home. These homes also included friends you could occasionally hang with. If you did not belong in that culture then you will likely never understand.

The whiney people in my mind are the ones that thought everybody who was better than them was a hacker or the idiots who could not find a proper server to play on.


RE: In a word...
By Yawgm0th on 11/13/2009 1:41:20 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
How does "your friend" know that he has 0 ping as the host? The game doesn't display ping counts.
By definition, the "host" in a P2P game -- the non-dedicated server, if you will -- has zero ping. It doesn't matter what the game does or doesn't display display.

The inability to use dedicated servers in a modern shooter is not acceptable. MW2's PC value is between $20 and $40. It is a single-player game, effectively.


RE: In a word...
By Omega215D on 11/17/2009 1:23:24 PM , Rating: 1
Not really, don't knock if you didn't try it. I thought it wasn't going to be that great of a MP experience when I heard but I'm just as addicted to it as I was in MW1. Look, people can rate down all they want because geeks are becoming like lemmings and once they hear something "bad" about a game it's dismissed a la Win Vista and 7. There are some hang ups about disconnecting but it's around the same amount I got from MW1 when joining a server.


RE: In a word...
By Yawgm0th on 11/13/2009 1:35:42 PM , Rating: 4
BF2 also has epic air combat.

BF2's netcode is a good ten times better by my hyperbole, and BF2 was plagued by netcode issues for a long time.

BF2 this, BF that.

When the four-and-half-year-old game is better, something is wrong.

MW2 multiplayer for PC gamers is a fail.


RE: In a word...
By luhar49 on 11/15/2009 11:12:51 AM , Rating: 3
I agree. For this genre, BF2 is still about the best game.
Especially with the free release of all those plugin maps recently.
Huge multiplayer battles are the way to go. Nothing beats the thrill of working in big teams.

16 players is just not fun enough. Only reason for such low player count is that the games are developed for consoles. A PC server could easily host 100 players on one big map. Fight in air, land or water.


RE: In a word...
By Hiawa23 on 11/13/2009 10:01:05 AM , Rating: 3
I finished the SP last night on the 360 & now playing on Veteran, I must say, without a doubt the campaign was at one of the most amazing experiences I have ever felt playing any COD game before it & i have played em all. It was just pur gunporn.

The feeling of going through the airport or retaking the Whitehouse, & capital building, the game is simply my GOTY, & I am a console only gamer, never been into mouse/KB & fine with the quality the PS3 & 360 displays, it's good to see Activision doing well with this as I love it. Online Coop campaign would have been nice but overall an amazing package.


RE: In a word...
By Regs on 11/13/2009 12:00:11 PM , Rating: 2
I had no doubt COD 4 MW2 would be a success on sales even with all the flack about multiplayer being gimped. There's just no modern war game FPS like it, and that's the sad truth. I will still be very verbal and objective about how bad a decision it was to consolize multiplayer.


RE: In a word...
By Yawgm0th on 11/13/2009 1:56:02 PM , Rating: 3
Would anyone pay $60 for Half-Life 2 if it didn't come with anything but Half-Life 2?

MW2 is undoubtedly a great single-player game. But it deserved to have proper multiplayer. To say they consolized it is euphemistic at best. They regressed the FPS genre's multiplay by over a decade.

I'll buy MW2 if they drop the price to $20 or $30. It's arguably worth that as a single-player game.


RE: In a word...
By lainofthewired on 11/13/2009 12:37:21 PM , Rating: 2
Well those sales are for all 3 versions, right? Tons of 360 and PS3 people bought this game, what really matter is how many of these millions are PC sales.


Hardly Surprising
By wempa on 11/13/2009 8:49:12 AM , Rating: 2
Let's see. There have been hardly ANY interesting video games that have come out this year. Now, a highly anticipated title comes out after a long drought and is a huge success. This shouldn't surprise anyone.




RE: Hardly Surprising
By StevoLincolnite on 11/13/2009 9:07:54 AM , Rating: 2
No Interesting Games this year? I'm not sure about other platforms but on the Xbox 360 I found: Halo Wars, Halo ODST, Resident Evil 5, Need for Speed Shift, Wolfenstein, Tekken 6, Red Faction, Forza 3, Borderlands, Prototype and Batman: Arkham Asylum.

And soon Left 4 Dead 2, Assassins Creed 2!

Those are just the ones off the top of my head to boot, and doesn't include the Wii, DS, PSP, iPhone, PC, PS3, PS2 or "Arcade games". (Y'know those "little" games available for download on the PS3/360 like Battlefield 1943?)

Hopefully next year brings some nice golden gems that are not sequels. :)


RE: Hardly Surprising
By wempa on 11/13/2009 9:28:42 AM , Rating: 2
I don't find most of those that interesting. However, I'll revise my comment. There was almost nothing interesting released in the first half of the year. The past couple of months have been slightly better, but still nothing all that exciting. The previous years have definitely had a higher number of quality titles, at least through the same portion of the year.


RE: Hardly Surprising
By StevoLincolnite on 11/13/2009 10:53:31 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
I don't find most of those that interesting. However, I'll revise my comment.


No need, perhaps you missed where I stated " I'm not sure about other platforms but on the Xbox 360 I found " - Perhaps my wording could have been better, but I was not dissing you at all, or claiming your post was in any way incorrect.

In-fact the type of games we enjoy are all personal preference, just like movie tastes, or the types of food we eat, you may not have found any games of interest to you this year, but I did end up with dozens, even during the first part of the year.


RE: Hardly Surprising
By Hiawa23 on 11/13/2009 11:52:37 AM , Rating: 2
The video game industry has struggled for more than six months consecutively, with some game executives unsure if the 2009 holiday shopping season would save the industry.

I think what he is saying is they hope that holiday sales take many from the red to black, or they just hope that sales are great which is the case for many at this time of the year especially retail. Some are assuming he meant the videogame industry will crash if not & all is on the backs of Activision Cod MW2. Like one other poster said like in many industries some are getting by some are not, it's just how it goes especially in a bad economy.


RE: Hardly Surprising
By Sazar on 11/13/2009 5:58:06 PM , Rating: 2
Maybe in your opinion.

There have been plenty of quite excellent games released across all platforms that have gotten me really excited to be a gamer again.

Maybe you should try a couple of the games listed by some of the people responding to your original post. I haven't been able to tear myself from Borderlands and I am eagerly awaiting L4D2. MW2 I am boycotting till the price drops to something more reasonable. $60 is ridiculous.


RE: Hardly Surprising
By Hiawa23 on 11/13/2009 10:47:23 AM , Rating: 2
There have been hardly ANY interesting video games that have come out this year.

Between the PS3 Wii 360 I have had plenty of great games so far this year. I don't agree with your comment at all. It's been a fine year for us multiconsole gamers.


RE: Hardly Surprising
By wempa on 11/13/2009 4:43:29 PM , Rating: 2
Owners of all 3 consoles are definitely in the minority. Obviously, it'll be easier to find a decent game if you can choose from all 3 platforms.


And I thought Jason Mick was sensationalist...
By Boze on 11/13/2009 9:02:56 AM , Rating: 1
quote:
some game executives unsure if the 2009 holiday shopping season would save the industry


Yes, because the entire video games industry's survival is riding on the 2009 holiday season. What a crock of b.s. The video games industry is doing better than a lot of other industries, and it certainly isn't in danger of every single firm shutting its doors.




RE: And I thought Jason Mick was sensationalist...
By tmouse on 11/13/2009 9:25:07 AM , Rating: 2
I failed to see where it said the ENTIRE industry would shut down, the facts are while the industry is doing better that some other industries (a point that is completely meaningless btw) SOME companies are doing worse than others and the 2009 holiday season may not help them. The holiday season is generally a very important time in any sales industry. Some will shut down others will lay off people which will postpone or cancel development of some games, other projects may never get started if there is a bad holiday season. That's what the quote was saying and it seems perfectly reasonable to me.


RE: And I thought Jason Mick was sensationalist...
By invidious on 11/13/2009 10:27:31 AM , Rating: 1
Read between the lines all you want, he is commenting on what it says, and he put the quote in his comment. It clearly refers to the industry and not the quarterly or yearly budgets of the industry.

Furthermore its clear from your comment that you agree with him and your are just arguing symantics, so I might as well join in the fun.


By tmouse on 11/13/2009 2:56:44 PM , Rating: 3
He seems to interpret the quote as "if the 2009 holiday season is not good then the gaming industry will just dry up and die". This is quite simply a foolish interpretation. It is VERY common to use the term "save the industry" to mean an overall growth for the year or a loss. They have had 6 months of decline, IF the 2009 season is not good then it will not "save the industry". Not meaning everyone will close shop and it will no longer exist (although for some smaller shops that will happen) but 2009 will go down as a bad year. Do you actually think that the holiday season is not a VERY important time for sales of games? from September on is the time many of the must have games are released, to be on the shelves and on lists for the holiday season. Sure the hard core gamers get them the first day but the majority of the sales over a games lifetime come within the first holiday season after its release. Now day 1 can have the most sales for a blockbuster but for the majority of games it's the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas where the money is made. I highly doubt an executive would predict the end of the entire gaming industry. If the holiday season is poor it WILL effect budgets and game releases and force the cancelations of unnamed projects, if it's good the industry will be "saved" not from extinction but projects on hold will be reconsidered, more titles releases will be started and maybe even more hires instead of cuts. THAT would be a more sane interpretation.


By MrBlastman on 11/13/2009 1:48:34 PM , Rating: 2
No it is not. The Video Game industry is having a _very_ hard year. I have heard figures of sales being down over 30%. It is getting massacred; where do you get this idea that it is doing well?

Video Games are what people spend disposable income on. The consumer savings rate is over 5% (it used to be negative). That means they are spending less of their disposable income. Video games, thus, have suffered.


No other quality games scheduled this year?
By esaf on 11/13/2009 8:39:27 AM , Rating: 2
What about Left 4 Dead 2? Or possibly even Assassin's Creed 2?




By Yawgm0th on 11/13/2009 2:04:25 PM , Rating: 2
You... you've actually played the demo and feel this way?

I'm... appalled. L4D2 is nothing short of amazing. The atmosphere is arguably a little worse, but I'd say it's just different. It's like saying you didn't like Dawn of the Dead (1978) because the atmosphere was different than Night of Living Dead. I don't see any real problem with the L4D2 atmosphere.

Atmosphere aside, pretty much everything else is much better. The variety of weapons, melee weapons, gameplay mechanics, special infected, new game modes, even the netcode is better (hopefully that remains true with the full release).

MW2 seems to have gone with a less usable (unusable, even) netcode than MW. I find it an unplayable sequel to an otherwise excellent original game.


Gouging
By snikt on 11/13/2009 10:50:23 AM , Rating: 2
I would imagine a higher than average price tag for their game for PCs would "pump up" their sales a bit. Curious to know their actual number of games sold though.




Still on the fence
By Elementalism on 11/13/2009 11:50:50 AM , Rating: 2
I am still on the fence about this game. I am fine with buying a game for the single player aspect. But for 60 bucks that is a bit much. And I am torn about the MP aspect. While I dislike the small amount of players + no dedicated servers. I have to admit my biggest complaint for COD4 and WAW was non-stop nade spamming because 60 players were on those small maps.

/shrug




L4D2, BF2
By Yawgm0th on 11/13/2009 1:50:04 PM , Rating: 2
'nuff said. This is one game PC gamers don't need right now.

I'll stick with my dedicated servers, huge land/air/sea vehicle battles, character classes, squad combat, etc.

Most of all, I'll stick with my zombies.




Correction...
By jonmcc33 on 11/13/2009 2:38:54 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Activision's recent launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was an overwhelming success...


For the console.

For the PC? It was a complete failure. I am not even considering this game. Having enough difficulty accepting OFPDR (another console port). I might just grab ArmA2 because I know it was at least made for the PC. Buggy or not, I'll take something that was made for the PC over something made to be playing with a game controller.




By anandtech02148 on 11/13/2009 8:36:16 PM , Rating: 2
it's recycle codes from cod4, no destructible enviroment like BF badcompany 2, no dedicated servers, and obviously americans aren't that broke, if they can shell out $60bxs.
this is the wrong kind of encouragement, now they get cockier selling recycle codes with a paint job.
lets hope $300mil is to cover their marketing expense.




By Esquire on 11/16/2009 7:21:20 PM , Rating: 2
Same recycled shait
By akse on 11/16/2009 1:29:13 AM , Rating: 1
I really wonder what makes people buy these games?

I mean Cod 1 and 2 were great games at their time, they were nice. Then cod3 isn't really worth to mention. Cod 4: MW1 was really great modern FPS game. The single player part was nice entertainment for a while (5-10h), but it was way too short to be the only content of the game. Thank god the multiplayer part was great and it kept me playing for a long time.

I didn't try WAW which was ww2 again, pretty much cod1 and 2 with new graphics I guess.

So now we have MW2, which is exactly like MW1 with a tiny upgrades to the same graphics engine, new campaing which is as short as MW1. The multiplayer part is the same stuff as before, with more this and that stuff. All the perks and killstreaks were pretty much in the limit of annoyance in MW1 already.

So what makes people to pay 60€ of a short sequel to the story + some small fancy new stuff for multiplayer? Well for me it seems like there wasn't much of a competition right now. BC2 coming next year so many people buy this game meanwhile.

Anyways I didn't wanna buy it, I rather play MW1 whenever I feel like I need some shooting.

In PC part they really messed up. Just give up with the PC and do the consoles, no one needs shitty ports.




This
By MPE on 11/13/09, Rating: -1
RE: This
By Regs on 11/13/2009 12:46:02 PM , Rating: 1
While we are on the subject....

You know what I can't stand? Writers that fall in love with themselves, date themselves, and try to use "artistic" license that make the idea or point they're trying to bring across so convoluted that not even twenty super computers can try to decipher or decode wtf they said. In this case, I read the article, and it made sense. In the end it's all that that matters.


"We can't expect users to use common sense. That would eliminate the need for all sorts of legislation, committees, oversight and lawyers." -- Christopher Jennings

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