Activision Blizzard’s Call of Duty: Black Ops II has reached sales in excess of US$500m within its first 24 hours, outpacing Microsoft’s Halo 4, which took in US$224m in its first 24 hours.
Call of Duty: Black Ops II has also exceeded box office receipts for Harry Potter and Star Wars. The latest instalment of the franchise came from Treyarch.
There have been more than 30m YouTube video views of the game’s live-action Surprise launch trailer since its release on 29 October. The game’s launch was a top trending topic on Twitter in 23 cities worldwide.
“With first-day sales of over half a billion dollars worldwide, we believe Call of Duty is the biggest entertainment launch of the year for the fourth year in a row,” said Bobby Kotick, CEO, Activision Blizzard, Inc.
“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.
“Given the challenged macro-economic environment, we remain cautious about the balance of 2012 and 2013,” Kotick said.
