The other day a GameStop employee told me thatCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 2had the “biggest launch in the history of entertainment.” I didn’t put much stock into what the employee had to say at the time. I was trying to receive a refund on a pre-order because I think three-hour lines are dumb, while he was trying to convince me thatMW2was mad popular and people like standing in three-hour lines. But if analyst Ben Schachter has it right, then the GameStop guy isn’t too far off in regards to sales —MW2may have sold overseven millioncopies worldwideits first day at retail.
Seven million, folks. That’s seven million times the amount of copiesLipssold over its lifetime and doubleGrand Theft Auto IV’sworldwide first-day sales. Speaking of that,MW2has already doubledGTA IV’ssales in the UK which seemed to have an impact on Schachter’s estimate.
“WithGTA IVselling-through 6mm units worldwide in its first week,” Schachter recently said (viaJoystiq), “that suggests week one ofModern Warfare 2worldwide sell-through could approximate ~11.7mm.”
“While 2x the week one tally forGTA IVmay seem aggressive, the bottom line is that we believe current consensus estimates of around 12mm for the December quarter may end up being conservative.”
If true, this istheaccomplishment of week, to say the least. I’m trying to think about all the money that was made onMW2’srelease date, but my brain broke while attempting to process the ridiculousness. I’ll have to ask GameStop-dude to break it down for me later.
