More than $1 billion of Call of Duty: Ghosts sold to stores

Everyone was expecting Call of Duty: Ghosts to do well and it has apparently ‘sold more than $1 billion into retail stores worldwide as of day one’. This is not release day sales, however.

No one is arguing that $1 billion in sales wouldn’t be an incredible achievement. That would not only double the $500m that Call of Duty: Black Ops II made in its first day but even beat the record-breaking $800m made by Grand Theft Auto V on day one.

It must be pointed out that Ghosts has been released at a time when there have been unprecedented annual declines to titles such as Battlefield 4 and Assassin’s Creed which have been attributed to the belief that gamers are waiting on the release of the next-gen versions for Xbox One and PS4. That’s probably a pretty good guess.

That is also the reason why Activision has been a tad coy in releasing the game’s actual day one sales numbers and are, instead, claiming the awkward victory of units shipped to stores.

“Call of Duty is by far the largest console franchise of this generation,” Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick stated. “More people have played Call of Duty this year than ever before, logging four billion hours of gameplay.”

Ok. And sales figures?

“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 at a time when the franchise has never been more popular.”

Righty, we’re not getting there are we?

The publisher goes on to point out that Ghosts is currently the No.1 played game on Xbox Live following an estimated 15,000 midnight retail launches across the globe. Again, impressive.

It also boldly predicts that Ghosts will be the best selling next-gen game by far during the launch window.

“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,” Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg added. “In fact, according to GameStop, Call of Duty: Ghosts is their most pre-reserved next-gen title”.