Call Of Duty: Ghosts’ Makes $1 Billion In Day One Sales…To Retailers

In gaming, sales numbers are the king statistic. It is a number that shapes what developers and publishers can do and it is important for each company’s future plans. Call of Duty had, for a long while, been atop the leader board year in, year out, until Rockstar Games swooped in and stole the crown from Activision‘s head a few weeks ago by garnering a staggering $1 Billion sales in just 3 days with the long-awaited release of Grand Theft Auto V. Activision vowed to reclaim the world record, even with declining sales for the series and lowered expectations for Ghosts.

So you can imagine the surprise when Activision announced that they had sold a billion’s worth of Call of Duty: Ghosts in just 24 hours. It is a rather perplexing stat, due to the cooler critical reception to Call of Duty: Ghosts and the game having a divided release between the current and next generation. When taken on face value, the stat holds up. Activision did sell a billion dollar’s worth of the games but on closer inspection, the sales were ”into retail stores worldwide as of day one” as opposed to consumers.

Still, there’s no questioning the numbers of the franchise to date, namely last year’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, or the popularity of it and Call of Duty: Ghosts online. It’s not only the most popular game on Xbox Live, but average player sessions are longer than any previous COD game.

Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard:

More people have played Call of Duty this year than ever before, logging four billion hours of gameplay. And in the last 12 months, Call of Duty®: Black Ops II, including its digital content, generated more revenues than any other console game ever has in a single year. Although it is too early to assess sell-through for Call of Duty: Ghosts, it’s launching a ta time when the franchise has never been more popular.

Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing:

Ghosts is an amazing game which ushers in the next generation of Call of Duty. The team at Infinity Ward has delivered yet another epic thrill ride in the campaign, and what I think is our best multiplayer game yet. This is the must have launch title for the next generation of consoles, and we expect Call of Duty: Ghosts to be the most successful launch title for the Xbox One and PS4 by a wide margin. In fact, according to GameStop, Call of Duty: Ghosts is their most pre-reserved next gen title.

The billion dollar figure is still impressive and represents the brand power of the shooter franchise from sheer retailer expectations alone. Activision and Infinity Ward do however, have the reputation and momentum of their flagship franchise to worry about. The profits for the game will be astronomical with its sales, even if it sells less, and it did have a much smaller budget than Grand Theft Auto 5. It also has split its release with the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions of the game, delayed until each respective console’s release. While gamers can trade in their games for a small upgrade price, some will be holding off until the next generation’s launch to get into the game.