‘Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare’ Is The Biggest Entertainment Launch of 2014

In the last few weeks, Activision has claimed that Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare would not only outsell Call of Duty: Ghosts, but also go on to become the biggest game of the year – Two very bold claims for a series that’s slowly dropping in sales.

Last week, however, alongside the release of the game’s first update, Advanced Warfare was revealed to have accomplished the former of Activision’s statements, outselling Ghosts; at least, in the UK. Today, it seems that the game has vindicated the second of the two claims, with Activision announcing that AW is now the “biggest entertainment launch of 2014″ when it comes to overall revenue, even when compared to the likes of movie, music and book launches.

Furthermore, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is the “highest-selling digital launch in console history,” based on data from Xbox Live, PSN and Activision’s own internal estimations.

With milestones such as these to be proud of, you’d think that definitive sales numbers for the game would soon follow, if only to show off; but no. For one reason or another, Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, avoided the subject, instead focusing on total revenue made since the Call of Duty series began in 2003. And while $10 billion is a large amount of money most can’t even begin to imagine, it’s not specific enough to make Advanced Warfare’s own achievements more exciting.

There were no launch day stats; no lengthy infographics; nothing that really says “look at what we did!” aside from a couple of player stats revealing that 370 million online matches were played during the game’s launch week, and players have leveled up over 200 million times.

“Since Activision created the Call of Duty franchise in 2003, franchise revenues have exceeded $10 billion in sales worldwide, far exceeding box office receipts for such household movie franchises as Hunger Games, Transformers, Iron Man and Avengers, combined.”

Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing, added on to speak about sales performance, though only in vague terms:

“Sales and engagement are up through the first week compared to last year. Season Pass sales are up, as well. The game has been very positively reviewed and the response from fans has been tremendous. We believe Advanced Warfare will be the most successful game of the year and we thank our fans for making it the biggest entertainment launch of the year.”

Activision neglecting to delve into overall sales numbers for AW (or sharing any other interesting facts) is a bit suspicious; almost to the point that it downplays the game’s own accomplishments. For past releases, the company has been eager to share and discuss the performances of their games, regardless of if they were big hits or underwhelming.

For whatever reason, though, Activision isn’t sharing much this time around, and it’s unlikely that we’ll get more out of them.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is out now for PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

TAGS: Activision, Call of Duty, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, PC, PS3, PS4, Sledgehammer Games, Xbox 360, Xbox One

‘Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare’ Is The Biggest Entertainment Launch of 2014

Xbox One Nearly At 10 Million Units Sold

10 million is a large number. It’s so large that most people usually don’t think about it unless it’s a dollar amount or a massive number of things sold after a certain amount of time. Imagine what 10 million things would even look like when placed next to one another; that’d probably be a waste of time to set up and a very poor use for that space, but try to imagine anyway.

Microsoft is close to reaching that 10 million amount themselves, but this time with the Xbox One. The system launched last year shortly after the PlayStation 4, and has since released in over 20 markets, including North America, the UK, and Japan. After the removal of the Kinect camera, a couple of price drops, and a handful of new bundles, the Xbox One is now on the rise to reach the same milestone its competitor did three months ago.

Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate Vice President of Devices and Studios, revealed on Xbox Wire that the uptick in sales “has been amazing,” and that sales have since tripled when compared to last week. Most notably, however, is that Mehdi also teased the fact that Xbox One has finally overtaken the PS4, saying:

“As we head into the busy holiday season Xbox One led generation 8 console sales in the US for the past two weeks.  Shortly, we will have sold in to retailers more than 10 million Xbox One consoles.”

While “sold into retailers” isn’t the same as selling through to consumers (Microsoft’s sales numbers incorporate the number shipped to stores), it’s still impressive to see the Xbox One gaining ground in its first year, especially considering it didn’t have the smoothest of launches.

As said before, the temporary price drop (which will probably become the “new low price”), as well as the introduction of new bundles that include games like Sunset Overdrive, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, and Assassin’s Creed Unity, have greatly helped the system reach new people. The launch of the Xbox-exclusive Halo: The Master Chief Collection probably helped as well, launch problems aside.

Microsoft has certainly worked hard to get the Xbox One to where it is today, as the monthly system updates should show. And regardless of if Xbox One is behind PS4 or not, the fact remains that both systems have done incredibly well. Heading into the holidays, and 2015 (when the new games really start showing up), sales numbers will only continue to increase.

Source: Xbox Wire

Xbox One Nearly At 10 Million Units Sold