Analyst estimates seven million day-one sales of Modern Warfare 2

by JC Fletcher { Nov 11th 2009 at 7:20PM }

Analyst Ben Schachter estimates that Modern Warfare 2, that game you're playing right now, sold seven million copies worldwide in its first day on the market, almost doubling the first-day sales of Grand Theft Auto IV (3.6 million). 1.2 million copies have already been accounted for in the UK -- not coincidentally, also double that region's first-day total for GTA IV. That trend went into Schachter's estimate.

"With GTA IV selling-through 6mm units worldwide in its first week," Schachter said, "that suggests week one of Modern Warfare 2 worldwide sell-through could approximate ~11.7mm. While 2x the week one tally for GTA IV may seem aggressive, the bottom line is that we believe current consensus estimates of around 12mm for the December quarter may end up being conservative."

Here's an eye-opening number for context: Street Fighter II on SNES, which we think of as ubiquitous, sold 6.3 million copies worldwide. Total.

Tags: activision, analyst, ben-schachter, infinity-ward, modern-warfare-2, sales

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

JXCgunrunna @ Nov 11th 2009 7:20PM

Sorry to hijack this post already and I know this is off topic but Joystiq stopped updating the original post. The PS3 multiplayer issue is due to Demonware's servers being over loaded and down. This is not due to the code or the trophies as many of us had thought.

I would like to point out that while so many people bitch about paying 50 dollars a year, part of that covers the servers that are rarely down on Live and easily fixable because everything is internal at MS whereas on the free PSN, third parties are involved and now you have Sony, the Publisher, the developer, and the server supplier involved and a lot more trouble shooting to do.

The servers should be starting to come back up.

http://twitter.com/fourzerotwo

Space @ Nov 11th 2009 7:28PM

cool bro, I'll use that $50 to buy the game and wait for the servers to go back up.

jbloss @ Nov 11th 2009 7:31PM

Remember winter of 2007? 360 servers were down for days (yes, DAYS) at a time. One plus of having so many different 3rd party server suppliers is that if one of them goes down, like Demonware, so be it. You can just play a different game for the time being. However, when the Microsoft servers go out, you are not doing anything online, not even signing in.

Ahmedz @ Nov 11th 2009 7:41PM

At least they were compensated.

Fenrir @ Nov 11th 2009 7:52PM

Great thing about dedicated servers is that if one provider goes down, there's countless others to play on. Provider goes down on matchmaking? Nobody gets to play at all.

Heh.

Jeffrey Haywood @ Nov 11th 2009 7:54PM

i have both ps3 and 360 and i rarely have problems with either of them.. bost systems are awesome but i like ps3 better and to add on top of that i got mw2 for 360 soo yeah

NOT ME @ Nov 11th 2009 7:55PM

wow if you cant scrape up $50 within a yr....then you are a broke bastard. sad thing is that some people that whine about 50yr price are the same people who get limited editions all the time....hmm i dont know useless shit or 50 for live (minus the COD goggles that was actually worth it)

Kodros @ Nov 11th 2009 7:57PM

"I would like to point out that while so many people bitch about paying 50 dollars a year, part of that covers the servers that are rarely down on Live"

We get it, you can stop recruiting now. Now I would like to point something out. If you went up to a PS3 player during this outage and offered them a working connection to MW2 for $50, how many people do you think would have taken you up on that offer? Because honestly, this kind of thing happens maybe once a year on PSN. The last, and only, other time that I recall this happening was with GTA4.

Shadowfax (PSN: u2fan4894) @ Nov 11th 2009 8:05PM

OK, you don't pay 50 dollars for dedicated servers, you get p2p servers, which is pretty cheap on Microshaft's part. Get your facts right.

JXCgunrunna @ Nov 11th 2009 8:10PM

I said servers, not dedicated servers. Get ur facts right

Josh @ Nov 11th 2009 8:30PM

You know what would have been even easier?

Dedicated servers.

Granted, we're talking about a PS3 problem, but I felt like getting that in there. I mean, just gotta make sure you're aware of this dedicated servers problem, since it's got such a small presence online; you might have missed it.

Bobby Kotick @ Nov 11th 2009 8:46PM

So let me get this down right. According to you, Activision has ruined gaming as a whole. Because MW2 was released, your consoles commited suicide, and now you can never play another game again.

Look thatguy, I'm sure it would be perfectly natural for you to be jealous of me, but come on. There are other games out there. I personally don't see what all the hype over games like Uncharted 2 and Halo 3 was all about, but I don't let them decide whether I play games at all. I let other things determine whether I play games at all, like say for example, being the CEO of a distributer that just helped with the best FPS since Doom...

whoo...

Darth Bradwart, The Dark Lord of the Sith @ Nov 11th 2009 8:56PM

To be fair, Bobby, you did learn from the Master.

DrunkenPandaren @ Nov 11th 2009 9:29PM

50$ a year is less then 5 bucks a month.

Sly @ Nov 11th 2009 10:25PM

@that guy

you do realize that no one grenade spams anymore, right? so it's not a fragfest. unless you mean frag as in kill, in which case that would be a good thing since it's an online shooter...

PSN: John-Paul-Jones (click for last.fm profile!) @ Nov 11th 2009 10:42PM

@ jbloss

I definitely remember that. On the PS3 version, however, it was down for WEEKS. I remember people started to complain all the way from December to the end of January that matchmaking was down. Despite that, I think Activision/Infinity Ward should have bug-tested Modern Warfare 2 since they claim it's the game of the decade. Trophies and even game invites are not even working, and these are the basic elements of the game that should have been easy to spot. I think they did not even bother game testing Modern Warfare 2 =\

jak33 @ Nov 11th 2009 11:45PM

I played it yesterday, and it was a good game, but not life altering. No, Uncharted 2 was life altering. MW2 just seemed to be entertainment... and the cocky "You are playing this game right now" remarks aren't really that amusing, especially to those of us who are not, by out own will.

brian @ Nov 11th 2009 11:59PM

man, all this talk about psn crashing ro xbox live crashing makes me happy i have a list of dedicat.....

o yea.

guess we are all butt fucked from time to time, deal with it

mahouneko @ Nov 12th 2009 1:48AM

Dood, DemonWare got bought out by Activision two years ago. Either way, it's still Activision/Infinity Ward's fault.

JXCgunrunna @ Nov 11th 2009 7:23PM

And holly fuck thats a lot of games sold. That means lots of competition >:D Can't wait!!

Darth Bradwart, The Dark Lord of the Sith @ Nov 11th 2009 7:31PM

Well, according to Live there are 809,699 players online.

Shadowfax (PSN: u2fan4894) @ Nov 11th 2009 8:06PM

No, that means whiny preteens, campers, and cheap assholes.

maveric101 @ Nov 12th 2009 3:03AM

@ Darth

800k on MW2? do you know what it was on launch day? i'm curious as to how it compared to Halo 3's launch; if i recall, Halo 3 got up to well over a million, maybe two millionish before Live started having problems and kinda died.

WREturns [Planeteer I Power of The Final Countdown] @ Nov 11th 2009 7:25PM

Holy shit. One day I'll be able to tell my grand kids that I was one of those 7 million...

MrXile @ Nov 11th 2009 7:26PM

lol - see, games are cool again :D

Orchard Pear @ Nov 11th 2009 7:27PM

Oh, thank god...

I'd went an hour with seeing a Modern Warfare 2 article.. and I swear to God.. I thought I was going to die!

Darth Bradwart, The Dark Lord of the Sith @ Nov 11th 2009 7:28PM

Oh my God...that even beats Halo 3...

Pantsparty @ Nov 11th 2009 7:30PM

Well, It is multi-platform.

But it's still an outrageous number that we all saw coming.

tmacairjordan87 @ Nov 11th 2009 8:14PM

It is multiplatform, but if that 7 million is true then at least 4 or 5 million is 360 which WOULD beat halo 3's numbers.

Bobby Kotick @ Nov 11th 2009 8:27PM

More than Halo? That's great news. Now I'll be able to afford bread on the table.

Peter Moore @ Nov 11th 2009 8:45PM

Who else but Bobby?

*A-wackity Smackity Doo~!*

Darth Bradwart, The Dark Lord of the Sith @ Nov 11th 2009 8:52PM

Yo, Bobby, I'ma happy for you an all, but...

Naa, I can't.

The Dark Wayne [Planeteer: Power of the Batusi] @ Nov 11th 2009 9:02PM

i thought halo 3 did 7.5 mil first day? Or was that first week?

Darth Bradwart, The Dark Lord of the Sith @ Nov 11th 2009 9:05PM

Microsoft never released concrete numbers, but Halo 3 did approximately 4 million sales the first day.

Wayne...I don't think you play enough games. A five-figure Gamerscore?

The Dark Wayne [Planeteer: Power of the Batusi] @ Nov 11th 2009 9:47PM

how do you know that?! WHO ARE YOU?! Are you midnight mask? No one answers me when they send a request and I ask who they are

Darth Bradwart, The Dark Lord of the Sith @ Nov 11th 2009 9:52PM

No...and you told me your GT earlier to prove your Bio was written in Mandalorian...

The Dark Wayne [Planeteer: Power of the Batusi] @ Nov 11th 2009 10:28PM

oh yeah, heh. Well what's your gamertag so i can mock your puny gamerscore?

jbloss @ Nov 11th 2009 7:29PM

For a second I thought it said Pachter... but then I realized they just sound the same...

Prof. Von Manifest (aka the caterpillar in your buttermilk) [PSN: Manifest37] @ Nov 11th 2009 8:10PM

On GT's Bonus Round, Patcher predicted that MW2 wouldn't touch GTA4 sales.

Eat it Patcher!!!

embassy @ Nov 11th 2009 9:01PM

Actually he was talking about the ps2 iterations of GTA, which sold upwards of 20 million each.

Prof. Von Manifest (aka the caterpillar in your buttermilk) [PSN: Manifest37] @ Nov 11th 2009 9:16PM

You're probably right, it was GTA none the less.

But yeah, the 20 mill part, he didn't think MW2 had it.

ripslymemc @ Nov 11th 2009 7:31PM

I really want this game, and I want to use a mouse with a WASD, but I don't think my computer, while decent, can handle the requirements of this game.

What's a guy to do?

Darth Bradwart, The Dark Lord of the Sith @ Nov 11th 2009 7:33PM

PS3. Now just 299.

IT ONLY DOES EVERYTHING!

Really, they should have keyboard support for the PS3 version, like Unreal Tournament 3.

Ashitaka @ Nov 11th 2009 7:43PM

No, but you see Bradwart, that's a PC "feature" (their words). If they included keyboard support for the PS3 version then there would be one less PC "feature" they could boast about :P

ripslymemc @ Nov 11th 2009 8:00PM

I do have a PS3, and while there are kb/m adapters available, it wouldn't be fair to other players, as I have arguably more control. They're pretty expensive too.

I guess I'll have to pass up on this game then :(

verymetal @ Nov 11th 2009 7:32PM

I can get online and play the mulitplayer on the PS3 with no problem, but the only problem is that me and my friends cant join up together for co - op or the multiplayer. When we send each other invites, it just doesnt work. That is frustrating. Has anyone else had this problem? I figured I would give it a few days, since the game just came out, and maybe their would be a patch or something.