Modern Warfare 2 is universally expected to be the biggest video game of 2009, says Venture Beat. The game debuted tonight at midnight Eastern time as retailers around the country held midnight events.
The game is part of the Call of Duty franchise but set in the context of modern anti-terrorist combat.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, launched in 2007, sold more than 14 million units, says Venture Beat, giving its developer Infinity Ward and Activision Blizzard one of the most powerful game franchises on the planet. It runs on a proprietary game engine with features that include true world-dynamic lighting, HDR lighting effects, dynamic shadows and depth of field. The engine was not used in any of the company’s previous games.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will utilize a new proprietary engine dubbed “IW 4.0″, which has been claimed to be a generation more advanced than the engine used in Call of Duty 4. The PC version will share the same 18-player cap as the console versions. There are 23 cooperative, two-player missions, which can be completed online or with a friend on the same couch.
At $60 each, the game has generated more than $840 million at retail. The industry is hoping that Modern Warfare 2 will bring back the sizzle in game sales that have been hurt by the recession. Activsion Blizzard chief executive Bobby Kotick said it may be the biggest entertainment opening of all time, with revenues exceeding the $155 million opening weekend of The Dark Knight. About 10,000 stores opened at midnight.
“As of today, the number of pre-order reservations we’ve taken for the game is the highest for any title we’ve ever sold in our 6,200 store network,” said Tony Bartel, executive vice president, merchandising and marketing, GameStop Corp.
Grand Theft Auto IV from publisher Rockstar Games brought in some $500 million dollars in first-week sales when it was released in April, 2008. As of 11 March 2009, the game has sold over 13 million copies. Halo 3 grossed US$300 million in its first week. More than one million people played Halo 3 on Xbox Live in the first twenty hours. By March 2009 more than 1 billion online matches had been played. A prequel to the game, Halo 3: ODST, was released worldwide on September 22, 2009.
Gamerankings.com has the current sales figures while Wikipedia has a list of the best selling video games for the X Box 360, Playstation and Wii.
