Black Ops II shatters entertainment records – over $500 million in sales in 24 hours

"Once again, it looks like Call of Duty has turned the gaming industry upside down with absurd sales numbers. For the fourth year in a row, nothing comes close to these numbers."

[Neonridr]

Wow. Didn't Halo 4 only do approx. 400 million in it's first 24 hours?

[SuperLupe]

"only" ... ?

[MikeMyers]

Yup, and the better they do the more the haters come out to voice their opinions. Just goes to show how many still love the Call of Duty franchise and the formula they have perfected.

[SJPFTL]

yahh they perfected lag, terrible hit detection, glitches etc etc

[nrvalleytime]

^ What online game doesn't experience all of these things from time to time? I'm not defending the series by any means, but just it's successful doesn't mean that it's immune to all the problems that almost all online games encounter. Even Halo has a tendency to bug out from time to time.

[DigitalAnalog]

It's also a known fact that the "majority" of these buyers are not up-to-date with latest happenings gaming has to offer. You just offered a self-serving statement which is already so blatantly obvious from the start. Nobody is insinuating the game will LOSE sales, which you are obviously trying to imply.

[MikeMyers]

@SJPFTL

People continue to play Call of Duty for a long time after its release and then repeat that cycle once the next game comes out. I'd say that's a pretty good indication they have attracted a rather large and loyal fanbse. If you don't like the series that's fine but obviously millions of others do.

@DigitalAnalog

You have no idea how up to date those millions of gamers are. Enough of the generalizations. They want to play the game. They keep buying the game in large quantities. They spend endless hours on it. End of story.

I am not insinuating they will lose sales from all the flack people give it within the forums. What am I am saying is the bigger something is the more people come out of the woodwork to downplay it.

[pr0digyZA]

Halo 4 is only one platform. So not really a fair comparison.

[farhad2k8]

CoD BO2 on the XBOX alone out sold HALO 4 on the XBOX.

[Shepherd 214]

More people are into the "realistic" military atmosphere than sci fi and aliens and super soldiers. Just sayin.

[Neonridr]

I wasn't trying to start anything, I just couldn't believe that Black Ops 2 did that much. I will agree with a poster below though. Halo 4 did 400 million on only the 360 whereas Black Ops 2 did 500 million on PC, PS3 and 360..

[atticus14]

Most brodudes play CoD on 360. It could very well still have beaten halo sales only taking 360 vs 360 sales.

[nrvalleytime]

True, true. Still an unbelievable number of sales though.

[SJPFTL]

Halo 4 only did 220 million in 24 hours. Which is still pretty good considering it is only 1 platform.

[ALLWRONG]

I don't thing COD would stand a chance if Halo was multiplatform.

[Getowned]

That's still amazing for a console exclusive. Halo 4 looks well worth the buy and if you've ever played Halo you know how great the online is. Uncharted 3 (which is also pretty awesome online imo vary hard also to me anyway) only did 3.8 mill in its first 24 hours, Halo 4's 220 mill in 24 hours it's not pretty good, it's amazing. Blops 2 selling 500 mil is just insane, I honestly never expected less with all the hype it had, it will be interesting to see what GTA5 dose in its first 24 hours.

[CalvinKlein]

haah that 3.8 million was how much uncharted 3 shipped in its first shipment, not sold in 1 day. ahahahhaahhahaha

[Neoprime]

Nah, I think it was 250 mil.

[GraveLord]

Halo 4 did approximately 220million in its first 24 hours.

[Donnieboi]

That's pretty damn sweet considering that Halo is an Xbox exclusive. So by that logic, Halo would have likely outsold BO2 if it were multiplatform too (like BO2 is)

[Thatguy-310]

Halo 4 only did 220$ million.

[miyamoto]

This is the reason why Bunjie went multi-platform.

They know Activision will sell their games better to moar gamers and they will make moar money on PS3 than 360 alone.

That is just sound business decision, eh General?

[Hellsvacancy]

Thats insane, not in a good way, please dont gimme the old "its keeping the industry going" because thats a load of bollox, its keeping Activision going, do you think they put the hundreds of millions they make back into the gaming industry? no, they just bring out another cheaply made product and reel in the cash again

Ive got no problem with people enjoying games, its just, THERES OTHER GAMES OUT THERE MAN

Its like a whole culture is under some sort of spell, i mean, ive got people (had) on my friends list, THAT ONLY PLAY COD GAMES, you can just look at there trophy list COD COD COD

[shivvy24]

agreed , just played through my friends copy of mw3 today and it was so average ! im gonna go and play Resistance 3 now

[NeoTribe]

Your gonna go play another average game again? Havnt you had enough?

[shivvy24]

@ neotribe , single player is awesome and i prefer single > multi

[MariaHelFutura]

Lightning Bolts and Butterflies.

[dark-hollow]

I don't understand this paranoia.
Its not like cod have a monopoly on the industry and gamers only buy cod games, just because your game isn't selling 20+ million doesn't mean your game is failure or you need to follow cod footsteps. If a gamer only plays cod then he probably wouldn't be interested in gaming at all and he wasn't a serious gamer to begin with, but when those new gamers buy consoles to play cod they almost guaranteed gonna buy some other games besides cod to fill the gaps between sequels and BAM, cod turned a non gamer into a core gamer.

the real problem with the industry playing "follow the leader" trying to get some share from cod's pie. THATS what really hurt the industry, because it DOESN'T work!!! Cod is successful because they didn't try to imitate the previous most popular fps games like halo and created their own identity.

[ABizzel1]

@Dark-Hollow

I agree with you, but what @Hellsvancancy said is true. There are "GAMERS" who buy:

Xbox 360 "SO CALLED GAMER"

1. Call of Duty
2. Sports Game (Madden or NBA2K or Fifa)
3. Halo / Gears of War / Need for Speed

And when you see that it's upsetting, because it's like a complete waste of console. There are ton of other games they could buy and potentially like as well, but they won't even give them a chance even if they're bargin bin prices.

I've had some friends like that as well, and the best thing to do is if you know them personally, bring a copy of a game you think they'll like and force them to play it. Most of the time they'll say it's alright, but as they're saying that they play longer and longer, and not realize how much they like it. Download demos to their console (most don't even bother) and make them play them. If they enjoy your recommendations then they're more likely to buy a game when you say it's good.

The sports fans are the worse, you have to find something they like going to the movies to see and find a similar game. However, I got COD friends hooked on Borderlands, Uncharted, Left 4 Dead and other games the use guns.

Still not the ideal use of a console playing only shooters, but it's better than seeing them play 3 annual franchises all year long.

[deletingthis34675334]

Pretty much this. I don't play CoD just like I don't play Angry Birds or FarmVille or WoW or, or, or ... but I don't rag on the games all day long on the internets like a mindless dolt. It isn't really CoD's fault in this case, but rather the majority of the major publishers and their developers in the industry for chasing the money instead of doing what they did best. EA/BioWare is a good example for this one. They abandoned their loyal and supporting fans because of their crave for a little extra cash. As a result the Mass Effect series lost much of what made the games great, in favor of pandering their games to drunken rednecks and battered housewives from the American midwest. Don't get me started on Dragon Age. I couldn't finish that repetitive piece of s*** you call Dragon Age II and I am not buying the third game nor any other BioWare game in the future.

[shammgod]

Robots

[Norrison]

I bought COD, but I play a lot more games, so stop ripping on COD players as a whole.

[Donnieboi]

COD = Children's Online Daycare

[Zefros]

To be honest, black ops 2 is a much better game than mw3,mw2 and blops 1. i really like the feel of this game despite the freezing issues i'm having.

[nrvalleytime]

Agreed. I've played each COD since Modern Warfare, but Black Ops II's reviews and gameplay have me thinking this might be the first one I actually purchase. It looks fun.

[HSx9]

Trust me, that's what everyone says the first few weeks COD comes out, later everyone starts abusing the mechanics.

[torchic]

weren't you around for the first BLOPS? everyone LOATHED that game from day one. I got the game 6 months later and thought the MP was amzing though.

same with MW3, from day one everyone hated the fact that it looked exactly like MW2, like there was nothing on that game that constituted a new disk, IW could've just threw all of it on as DLC. it deserved all those 0 scores on Metacritic.

BLOPSII is generally accepted by the community though, like there's widespread acceptance for it, and I haven't seen this since CoD4, which is good news.

[ab5olut10n]

MMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHH! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[WildStyles]

Please don't tell me anyone is surprised. The COD train won't slow down until people get tired next gen or a new game comes along and takes it's momentum.

[shivvy24]

i dont thing people will get tired , there will probably be a graphics leap again next gen then it will be like that for 5+ years , just like the cods now COD4 had the graphical leap and it stayed like that since

[ABizzel1]

People won't get tired, but it seems to happen every generation where something comes and steals the "IT GAMES" thunder as far as shooters go.

PC shooters were the first to set up the craze, but for some reason console gamers just can't get with the PC, when they likely use one everyday (Hook it up to your TV, and buy a controller. Entry PC gaming is $400 for a brand new PC and has better performance than the PS360 / Wii-U).

Then Halo came to consoles, and people went wild. It was the first time many people got to enjoy a good shooter on consoles. Then multiplayer took the world by storm. Halo kept it reign for 6 years (Halo 1 (2001) - Halo 3 (2007)).

Then Call of Duty Modern Warfare brought things to a new level with (at the time) next-gen graphics and fast smooth gameplay running at 60fps. Another thing that helped the game was turning it from World War 2, into a Modern Day shooter, giving some gamers a sense of serving in the war in Iraq that was going on at the time which only aided in it's domination. 2007 and running COD has been dominating the market for shooters. Call of Duty's success comes from it's decent graphics, simple gameplay, and 60fps.

Battlefield was next in line to steal it's thunder with it's PC showing. However, things didn't transfer to consoles quite as smoothly, and marred it's chances of a another console take over despite it's superior graphics.

Next year will be 6 years (the general replacement time), and new consoles will arrive giving someone a chance to steal Call of Duty's thunder since the advantage of 60fps in the shooter will likely be lost as most game should run at a similar framerate. I'm sure Call of Duty will continue to sell well for Activision even if it gets replaced just like Halo and Battlefield sale well, but there will be another game that pops it's bubble and storms the 20M+ sales while COD drops down to 10M+.

[Jadedz]

Though for the overall of the gaming industry - this is great news. "Gaming" is as big as the movie industry (maybe even bigger now).

[Spenok]

The gaming industry has beenbigger than the movie industry for a while now. I don't know the exact year count. But its been at least 4 years.

[Jadedz]

Thanks for the correction.

[Spenok]

Yep ^.^

[bakasora]

500 million, u sure about that number?

[MasterCornholio]

Its probably a mistake.

Motorola RAZR i

[ZoyosJD]

Its $500 mil or about 8.3 mil copies in 24 hr.

Relatively in line with (crazy COD) expectations.

MW3 did $400 mil or about 6.5 mil copies in 24 hrs.

[susanto1228]

Someone already said it but I'll say it again..

halo 4 is on one platform and BO2 on 3 platforms so
there sales are really not that impressive.

Also, even with all that revenue Activision is losing lots
of money on subpar games and have even shutdown some games
All these large sales let's them do is use money to release
crap games that fail. If it wasn't for the COD franchise they would be done, DONE DONE DONE.

[DA_SHREDDER]

Butt hurt much? This is a COD article, which is multiplatform. If you wanna cry go on your cross game chat and go cry to people who actually give a damn

[OneAboveAll]

Technically he is correct however. You can stop being butt-hurt over someone else being butt-hurt dingle berry.

[kevnb]

cod sales aren't impressive? ya... Blizzard is also a cash cow by the way.

[sdozzo]

Call of Duty is like Alex Rodriguez.

[shammgod]

Old and washed up

[sdozzo]

I was thinking more like a lighting rod for attention.

[kevnb]

blizzard and call of duty, thats a good chunk of the industry right now. Millions only play games from these categories.

[REDGUM]

That's alot of $'s!!!!

[bubblebeam]

Bill Gates and Gabe Newell must have disagreed with you........

[ger2396]

Wow, It doesnt matter how much hate they get. Every game developer would kill for those numbers.

[TemplarDante]

Well done Activision!
I cant wait to see what you do next gen!
How will the Nextbox and Orbis run the glorious and enduring Quake 3 game engine!
Better yet, we may finally get the FIRST truly HD COD game :)
Enjoy counting sheep, errr, I mean, money in your dreams Mr Kotick!

[ABizzel1]

I thought it was Quake 4, modified.

[NYC_Gamer]

Call of Duty is just a beast every year sales wise

[Jek_Porkins]

The best part of this news is that you get to see all the angry, self hating "COD haters" complain. They complain, then go to their console of choice and boot up Black Ops 2.

I think its fair to say that COD has gone beyond gaming and its an entertainment phenomenon, I mean I saw every local news station covering the midnight launches here. People in movies and television shows mention COD, and as long as it continues to grow, which I didn't think was possible, it will continue to release yearly.

As a gamer I thank Activision and COD because its positive numbers and people realize that gamers aren't going anywhere and neither are game consoles/games in general. We get so much negative press about declining sales that its nice to see something video game related break all records for entertainment.

If your one of the ones saying COD ruins the industry, I'd disagree completely, we still see a lot of innovative and interesting games, but people aren't buying the majority of them. In a day and age of the recession is still heavy for most of the world, people don't want to waste money on something they don't know will be good, with COD you know what your gonna get.

Congrats, that is a hell of a lot of money.

[ndl1531]

thats exactly why the cod franchises sell soo well. not because its a good game but because everyone is talking about it on tv . and what are the majority of people going to do? certainly run out and buy it because they are blind sheep who need to be shown what to buy . me i saw past the trash after the first mw title yes it was amazing but after that what? at this point its not even gamers who buy this anymore just cod casuals getting their yearly cod fix . and i am most certainly not "hating" on this turd cause to hate is to secretly want and sir from the bottom of my heart i tell you i do NOT care. just baffles my mind how this crap keeps selling the way it does .then again mcdonald's are far from the best burgers around not even decent and they outsell everyone else hmm. thats something to think about

[gamernova]

BO2 is a drastic change to CoD. So many people have shunned CoD out that when they come out with something new, they automatically assume it is the same thing again and again without giving it a fair chance.

[CrimsonessCross]

Glad I wasn't one of those people. I followed up on the game once I started looking into it a lot more. The more I watched and educated myself on Black Ops 2, the more I found myself so excited I went to my first midnight launch :D FREE STUFF :DD <3 haha

The campaign from what I played is great, The strike force missions are CRAZY!!...the multi-player is amazing, it felt like a much faster paced play with the spawns (although some weapons feel not too powerful and the shotguns are ridiculous, not complaining though). Zombies is fantastic and every map plays different with what they have to offer.

I'm so addicted haha...I've lost my life to this game, Treyarch did an amazing job changing up the multi-player formula, offering a fantastic zombie mode that is slightly re-vamped and campaign that is quite interesting to play.
___________________________
Anyone who complains about this game is just...-shakes head-...It has changed up more than you would think. Many play-styles are viable which makes the game outstanding. Graphics are fine and i'm loving the non-bland color palette to the maps/environments/characters. We don't need to see see super-high fidelity definition graphics, it'd be nice, hells yeah, but it isn't needed entirely.

Sorry...rant :P I love the game [TL;DR] and know that my money has been justified and well-spent on this game.

[-MD-]

Point out the "drastic change" for me, I'm still seeing a game with absolutely zero recoil on guns, bad spawns and the same rehashed gameplay from the last 5 games in the series.

[gamernova]

So then you bought all the games even though you felt it was the same thing? Some idiot consumer you are. Pick 10 format revolutionizes the load out system. The smaller maps make the action almost continuous. Zombies is always fun too and have a lot more going for it than BO. The point system kill streaks are a way that encourage people to play the objective to get their streak more quickly. The Electric charges are awesome too. For me it was a change well worth the money. Sure, it has gotten more difficult. My KD is not as high as it would have been in BO but the change of pace in the game keeps the series fresh.

[CrimsonessCross]

I had to reply to you again from seeing your bottom post :P

It was difficult for me to pick up how fast this game had played in how it differs from the others. I don't have as high as a K/D as in previous games (play a lot of HCTDM but have also played a lot of other game-types), but these maps are so much more open ended and the spawns have been modified (apparently to a 3 second rule or something along those lines).

The shock charges are awesome, the equipment added to this game has much more of a use than the one-time "decoy" they had in the original Black Ops.

Score streaks are definitely the way to go now, the pick 10 makes so many viable builds on whether you gimp yourself or not.

At times I'm pretty sure I have to let go of the trigger and shoot in short bursts to get the accuracy I want with the distance I get. The one thing that STILL throws me off is when you scope in it doesn't slow down like before >.<

[DivineAssault]

Thats more than hello 4

[Lvl_up_gamer]

That's true, but that $500 million is spread over 3 platforms. Halo did $220 million and it was only over 1 platform.

[LAWSON72]

I zaid it would destroy halo 4 and i was correct eventhough it is multiplat it does not matter. Halo will never dethrone cod in sales. Halo made 220 mil in a week, cod made 220 mil in a day. Too bad Some people put their heart and soul into a game and they cant even come close to a game that has very small changes and very little effort.

[Lvl_up_gamer]

First off, it DOES matter that COD was multiplatform hence why the $500 million made in 24 hours.

Secondly, Halo 4 made $220 million ALSO in it's first 24 hours.

http://ca.ign.com/articles/...

Get your facts straight if you have something to say.

[LAWSON72]

It maybe multiplat but the cod fanbase on xbox is way larger than halos and this is a fact that is why halo only has an average of 200000 people online black ops is probably over 1000000 average online. And also cod s mainfanbase is xbox. So it easily had at least 250- 300 mil on xbox alone.

[Lvl_up_gamer]

You have absolutely no idea what you are saying and are just making up numbers.

Again like I said get your >FACTS< straight before you have something to say.

[Gamer-Z]

Just let the casuals have their fun trust me there's no point in complaining about it. At this point COD is like facebook to them its not even about how good the game is, it can be a pile of garbage (MW3) and people will still buy it.

[Flewid638]

I think you're right about that. Bubble up.

[AmkOwns]

GTA V will beat it nuff sed.

[digger18]

Yawwwwwwwwwn

GTA V....No thanks, I hate boring openworld fetch and carry games like this.

[Awesome_Gamer]

You hate GTA, and you like CoD? How old are you again..?

[digger18]

Awesome_Gamer... I'm 46 and whats the problem with me not liking GTA games?

Must I only like games people tell me to like?

[mechlord]

*****Yawn*****
$500 mill, $1 bn, it dont matter to me.
why? i dont do FPS. Its kinda strange to me playing an entire game as a crosshair. Hate me all u want :)

still, good numbers...i just with other games could do a tenth of that

[Flewid638]

Man I couldn't agree with you more. Show me a fully rendered character jumping, climbing, fighting or doing anything in any genre....including shooting.

Just don't make me a moving camera. That's just boring.

[PurpHerbison]

I can't wait for next gen to come out. Should be fun playing all the same games with graphics almost as good as what my PC can put out right now. KAPPA

[DanielRCampbell]

You REALLY should have put a "$" before the 500. I know it's an enormously unbelievable number, but that's exactly why I was so confused.