Not surprisingly, the launch of Black Ops generated tremendous first week sales. Activision states that Black Ops grossed $650 million in the first five days, beating the previous record as the biggest entertainment launch in history. The previous record was set last year by Activision’s own Modern Warfare 2, which made $550 million in the same five day launch window. This places the Call of Duty series as the first entertainment property to set five day launch records for two consecutive years across all entertainment genres.
In addition, the title skyrocketed to take the number one spot on Xbox Live during the week of November 8th. Black Ops broke Xbox Live records with 2.6 million unique players online on the November 9th launch day and 5.9 million multiplayer hours logged on that day.
In the words of Darth Vader in Empire Strikes Back, “Impressive…most impressive.”