Call of Duty: Black Ops II reaches $1 billion in sales

GlobalPost

Call of Duty: Black Ops II topped one billion dollars in sales Wednesday, the quickest video game ever to reach the milestone at 15 days.

The new Call of Duty beat the older Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 to the billion mark by one day.

The 2010 release of the series, Black Ops, reached one billion in sales after about a month.

"Entertainment franchises that captivate audiences for as long as Call of Duty has, on the scale that Call of Duty has, are very rare things," Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing said in a statement, according to USA Today.

"And it takes a lot of brilliant people working across many different disciplines to make it happen. It is incredibly humbling and gratifying to be a part of."

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The game grossed $500,000 in the first day of its release, said the Los Angeles Times, despite predictions of a slowdown in sales of the series.

The sales figures are based on internal estimates and data from Chart-Track.

PC World reported that 15 days ago, 16,000 midnight store openings drew tens of thousands of fans to buy the game.

It became the top trending topic on Twitter in 23 cities around the world.

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