While we reported earlier that Black Ops 2's overall sales could be down 15% year-over-year, it seems the money train is still chugging along just fine for Activison.
The publisher has announced via a press release that Treyarch's Black Ops 2 has grossed $1 billion in sales in just 15 days. In comparison, last year's Call of Duty release, Modern Warfare 3, managed to cross that milestone in 16 days, so Black Ops 2 has it beat.
In a rather bizarre comparison, Activision also compared Black Ops 2's achievement to that of James Cameron's Avatar, stating it took the film 17 days to reach the $1 billion threshold. Seeing as games costs $60 a pop compared to movie tickets which are adjusted to price depending on where in the world they're released, this comparison is kinda skewered, no?
Of course, this can't be a complete Call of Duty chest-thumping without Activision CEO Bobby Kotick giving his official statement.
The release of Call of Duty has been one of the most significant entertainment events of each of the last six years…Since Call of Duty was launched, cumulative franchise revenues from players around the world are greater than current worldwide box office receipts to date for the top-10 grossing films of 2012 combined. Life-to-date sales for the Call of Duty franchise have exceeded worldwide theatrical box office receipts for 'Harry Potter' and 'Star Wars,' the two most successful movie franchises of all time.
What's interesting here is that Activision hasn't given a breakdown on how many copies the game has sold, nor was it broken down per platform. Does the figure include sales for Black Ops: Declassifed or any other versions aside from the PS3 and Xbox 360?
Also of note, Activision has also revealed that since launch, more than 150 million hours have been logged online playing Black Ops 2 on Xbox LIVE and the PlayStation Network.
I guess a congrats are in order, no? Now, seeing as the company is once again swimming in money, can we have dedicated servers for Call of Duty games now, please?
Are you one of the millions of people who contributed to Black Ops 2's impressive earnings yet again? Do you regret being one of them or are people just "hating" on the franchise at this point? When do you think will the series will run out of steam or can we expect the same thing to happen once next-gen rolls around?
(Image courtesty of NeoGAF)
