This broke Activision’s previous record of $550 million in worldwide sales for last year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and has shattered records across the board in all forms of entertainment, including box office, book and video game sales. This makes Call of Duty the first entertainment property in history to set five-day launch records for two consecutive years. Robert Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, spoke about the record breaking success:
In addition to the monetary success at launch, Black Ops has also set two new records on Xbox LIVE. According to Microsoft:
More than 5. 9 million multiplayer hours were logged playing the game by end of the first day at launch. More than 2. 6 million unique gamers played Black Ops in one day on November 9.
The game’s launch was not without its share of controversy, however. Commentators on the ESPN show 1st and 10 discussed at length about whether it was appropriate or not for Kobe Bryant to appear in a television commercial for the game. They noted that the star Lakers shooting guard can be seen in the commercial playing along with the warlike action and firing a weapon. Strangely enough, nobody seemed to mind that talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel can be seen in the same TV spot performing basically similar actions. Regardless, this is a very minor distraction to what is on all other accounts a phenomenally successful game launch.
Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing, put it best:
As gamers, we hope they can do just that.
So, what do you think of Call of Duty: Black Ops? Does it live up to the hype? Does any lingering controversy regarding the advertising for the game mar the gameplay experience for you?
Call of Duty: Black Ops is available now for the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, and PC.
