Activision today announced that it sold more than $1 billion worth of Call of Duty: Ghosts during the game’s first 24 hours on sale. This breaks the previous one-day record set back in September by Grand Theft Auto V, which sold more than $800 million on its first day and hit the billion-dollar mark within three days. Ghosts was released yesterday, November 5, for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC, and Wii U.
“Call of Duty is by far the largest console franchise of this generation,” said Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision. “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 at a time when the franchise has never been more popular.”
Importantly for Activision, Call of Duty: Ghosts almost certainly cost far less to produce than GTA V, which had a far longer development time. This means that more of that money will be inflating Activision’s bottom line.
With sales figures for current-generation consoles through the roof, it would be easy to assume that Call of Duty fans have opted to shy away from next-generation versions of the title, but that isn’t the case. In addition to the sales figures, Activision also asserted today that Call of Duty: Ghosts is GameStop’s most pre-ordered next-generation title.