January
21
Modern Warfare 3 hits record and sell $ 1 billion in just 16 days
Launched in December last year, the game "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3", the successful series of war games from Activision Blizzard, reached a selling $ 1 billion in 16 days, surpassing the box office movies huge success, as "Avatar" and "Harry Potter", but showed a slowdown in the record after his first week sales.
The MW3 sold more than the two previous releases of "Call of Duty" from Activision: "Black Ops" and "Modern Warfare 2." Revenue in the first day of sales was $ 400 million, totaling U.S. $ 775 million in five days, a demonstration of the increasing importance of the Hollywood style, based on the opening weekend and aggressive marketing.
Activision is claiming a new record for video game entertainment in the war, to reach $ 1 billion in sales in one day unless the movie "Avatar" for 20th Century Fox epic 3D James Cameron established the previous record by reaching that mark in 17 days in 2009. The production eventually stealing the "Titanic" the title of highest grossing film of all time, with a total revenue of $ 2.78 billion, according to Box Office Mojo, a movie site.
Some industry observers have suggested that the initial billing MW3 could lead to a rapid decline in sales, since three quarters of sales made at 16 days were collected in the first five days.
But Bobby Kotick, chief executive of Activision Blizzard, told the "Financial Times" that sales of "Black Ops" remained stronger than he expected one year after launch, due to consumer habits in play multiplayer games on the internet.
"These earlier versions continue to sell at higher volumes than we did before," said Kotick. "Although MW3 being sold more quickly, which is driving the success of these games is the social experience online."
The "Black Ops" a ranking leader of the NPD Group, which tracks sales of popular game titles in the U.S. with $ 900 million in sales today, after selling $ 360 million in its first day. Estimates indicate that MW3 has sold more than $ 500 million copies in the U.S. so far, while "Black Ops" sold the equivalent of U.S. $ 1.4 billion worldwide so far.
The revenues of U.S. $ 1 billion of "MW3" consists, largely from the sale of physical disks, but the new online service COD Elite, Activision, which provides statistics and extensions to the players, also won a little more 1 million paid subscriptions.
The two biggest video game companies in the world will face off again next week with the game "Star Wars: The Old Republic", EA, who will fight for space with the "World of Warcraft" from Activision.
Source: Value
