Modern Warfare 2 makes a killing, bundled games rally in UK sales chart

by Griffin McElroy on Nov 16th 2009 10:08AM

Much like a dude-seeking missile dropped from an overhead predator drone, Modern Warfare 2 sales plummeted in the UK after the game's first day of availability. As you already know, the game moved 1.23 million copies on its launch day -- however, according to Chart Track's calculations, it finished off the week with a paltry 1.78 million units (for £67.4 million) sold. With pathetic figures like that, you know Activision's got to be feeling disappointed.

Other UK chart staples (Wii Fit Plus, Wii Sports Resort, FIFA 10) all maintained their top 10 ranking this week -- though the list had two unfamiliar visitors who vaulted to the top of the charts on the back of a new 360 bundle: Lego Batman (which jumped from 14th place to 7th) and Pure (which sprung from 23rd place to 9th). That's quite a comeback for these two titles, though perhaps they would have fared even better had they been bundled with copies of Modern Warfare 2 instead.

Source -- Modern Warfare 2 Smashes All Records [Chart Track]
Source -- All formats chart [Chart Track]

Source

Tags: bundle, chart-track, fifa-10, Microsoft, modern-warfare-2, Nintendo, sales, uk, Wii, wii-fit-plus, wii-sports-resort, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (34)

Prediction: Assassin's Creed II or L4D2 will knock MW2 off the top of the Xbox 360 chart.

Look at me! I'm just like Mr Pachter!

I hope so. It annoys me that the public buys mediocre games in the millions. (Wii Fit, MW2, Anything with Mario in the title)

I know right? It's so mediocre, I guess that's why it's been getting great reviews everywhere.

Ohhh look at Mr. Hip who hates anything popular.

I don't hate popular things I hate games that are no better than every other shooter.

ppl who say or think mw2, tekken 6 big games franchises are great because reviews are mistaken those franchises must be protected by the industry so they will always garner high scores, so please dont think that because of a high review it is a great game, plus just think if maybe ign.com give a low score to that game, how many fanboys would stop going to their site

@Zeratti

Kind of like how unreleased games get insanely high ratings on XBL before the game is released. It's usually a hype score.

You know what I hate about the phrase, "no better than every other shooter."? The fact that just about "every other shooter" isn't no where near polished, balanced or plain fun.

That's like saying, "every other platformer". Oh, EVERY other platforming game is just like Super Mario Galaxy? I don't think so.

F.E.A.R. is NOT as good as MW2. Far Cry is NOT as good as MW2. You see where I'm going with this.

Ok, how about... every RTS is just like StarCraft. No it's not... by a long shot.

"so please dont think that because of a high review it is a great game"

You're right. I don't think it's a great game because of high reviews. I think it's a great game because I actually played it and I'm enjoying it.

And I'm getting real tired of that excuse as it seems to come around only when people feel a game is overhyped. A game that people like, totally deserves it. But if it's way too overhyped, it must be getting good reviews simply because of hype. It's fucking ridiculous.

@Jason

Well, on XBL the game got amazing reviews simply out of hype. Not saying ALL reviews are the case. But it did have a 4.8/5.0 stars before anyone could play the game. One reason I believe the XBL ratings are unfair. But I agree a game that is good will get good reviews. It should just be after people play it.

Modern Warfare 2 is a great game, and it deserves to be on top.

Having said that, it's painful knowing that now Activision will know that they can get away with raising the price of games and screwing up the PC version. Their talk of a subscription fee for CoD online isn't going to fade with these sorts of sales...

The multiplayer takes as much skill to get kills as walking and the story was god awful. Its only redeeming factors are Special ops and the huge amount of weapons.

Well, I thought the campaign was short but sweet, and didn't really mind the lack of story (can't think of more than half a dozen games that have good ones). Multiplayer is incredibly entertaining with a group of friends, although I can understand that it's very accessible and often chaotic, and spec ops gave me the chance for some split-screen co-op shooting, which so many games seem to ignore nowadays.

Not saying it's my game of the year, but it was definitely great fun for me.

The multiplayer kills it for me. It should take skill to win against other people but in Modern Warfare 2 it takes 3 bullets to kill a person.

Yes I do hate myself for buying the game.

Now not because the game sucks, as one reviewer put it "it is like a summer Michael Bay movie, lots of explosion, non-existent story," but because it will make Activision so much money. If IW broke out and made a shooter outside the CoD franchise it would be great :D

Now, as much as I love MW2, the single player is just not engaging, I mean really the story is all over the place, nothing is connected anywhere. ********SPOILER********

I mean seriously, they could have made Russian entrance into the US so much cooler.

**********END SPOILER**********

The multiplayer is on a completely different level. They have added everything that I ever wanted from CoD4. I mean silenced snipers :D

" If IW broke out and made a shooter outside the CoD franchise it would be great :D"

Except isn't that exactly what IW did by making the modern warfare franchise?

Modern Warfare 2 has a story, you just have to pay attention. A game doesn't have to over-explain itself, like Metal Gear for example, in order to have a story. What part of it didn't you get? And it does take skills to kill people in multiplayer. Sounds like Nathan is getting his ass handed to him online. So what if it takes three bullets, would you rather have it take 15? Because that would be really realistic....

I'm not going to feed the troll, but anyone that thinks getting kills in MW2 is easy has got another thing coming when they actually pick up the game. I'm right around level 30-35, and I still get into situations where I literally have to hide in a house for minutes on end because the combination of AC 130 gunships, helicopters, and predator missles has made it suicide to step outside. Even inside a house, there have been times where a round literally came through a hole in the roof and killed me. Getting kills in MW2 might not be as hard as getting kills in Red Orchestra or something of that nature, but it is still freaking hard. This is coming from someone that gets 20+ a round.

On that note, got my first helicopter gunner killstreak yesterday....awesome...just awesome.

@BananaBoat
You should have the stinger missile by now. Use it and take out the kill streaks with 1-2 hits. It is awesome with Cold-Blooded. I once took out an AC-130, Pave low helicopter, and a Harrier Jet in one life (I also had scavenger)

Off-topic but after writing all that, MW2 multiplayer seems a lot like an MMORPG when it comes to countering, strategy, etc...

@dreaded - I don't have cold blooded yet, or I don't think I do at least. One killstreak is easy enough to take care of, but when there is a pavelow, a harrier, a helicopter, and an AC130 (or some combination of those) it's instant death to step one foot outside. I guess that does change with cold blooded though, so I'll have to unlock that as soon as I can.

That is definitely one of the big gripes I've been hearing all week; Killstreaks tend to lead to other killstreaks, and it's a vicious cycle. You get to 3, and you get a UAV, which makes it fairly easy to get to 5, which gets you a predator missle. From there, any idiot can get to 7 which is an attack helicopter, or 9 which is the AC130/Helicopter gunner. When you add in that perk that makes it take 1 less kill for a killstreak, it just gets even easier. The aerial vehicles wreck the balance, IMO anyway. They sure are fun to use though.

@WRE

Don't act like MW2 is realistic in the least bit. Personally, I don't mind them making it only taking a few bullets to get kills if thats how they designed it but from my experience it's not consistent. But, you saying "15 bullets that'd be realistic hurr hurr" is just a dumb thing to say. Nothing about the multiplayer is realistic ... fun? sure. Realistic? not a chance. In real life you don't get kill streaks, perks, soak up bullets and magically knife someone once for a kill, regain health, ... personally I wouldn't mind a little more damage considering I'm terrible at the game and I always get matched up with people who are 2,3,4x my rank level. Yeah, I have the dumb perk that gives me extra health for a short period of time.

Correction: AC130 is 11 kills

It's so much EXP to take one out that it's sort of a good strategy to kill yourself and respawn with a class that has the stinger or jav.

Anyone else at the point where each level takes multiple hours and it's kind of a chore? I just got to lieutenant I think, and it is 30,000 exp to the next level. I get maybe 2000 on average for a win, and 1000 average for a loss. At that rate, I've got to play 15 matches (at 20 or so minutes a pop for team domination/Deathmatch with 18 people) at least, probably more. It would be fine if there were some cool weapons to unlock but after looking at the options I'm not really loving any of the higher rank weapons (AK as the top level weapon? Really? When you get the Barrett at level 1?)

Modern Warfare 2 is a great game, and it deserves to be on top.

Having said that, it's painful knowing that now Activision knows it can get away with things like raising the price of games and screwing up the PC version. Their talk of subscription fees for CoD online isn't going to fade away with sales like these.

Goddamn, I've finally fallen to the dreaded Double Post.

Better pack my pedestal away...

Modern Warfare 1.1 isn't that great of a game...

And the talk may not fade away, but the customer base sure will.

I know why, people are tired of playing the online & they're up against crappy campers! It's a shame when you finally play a game that you've been waiting for and you cant really play it cause everywhere you run there's some always and I do mean ALWAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! camping like a sissy. That's the truth, camp camp camp camp camp that's what this game has come to, no skill what so ever. I was excited about this till I played it now it seems I'd rather wait for Two Worlds II in the spring 2010. That's the feeling of it. THIS MODERN WARFARE 2 REQUIRES NO SKILL TO PLAY WHAT SO EVER, JUST FIND A SPOT, LAY DOWN & CAMP FOR THE WHOLE MATCH!!!!!!

I think MW2 deserves to be on top, but because of that I think Activision is going the wrong way.

Activision Exec: 'Expect' Additional, Paid Online Modes
http://kotaku.com/5405217/activision-exec-expect-additional-paid-online-modes

Wait... this isn't an MMO.

You can put me down in the group that thinks Modern Warfare 2 is overhyped and overrated. I'm not going to go as far as saying it completely sucks but for me it just didn't live up to the immense hype surrounding the game. The campaign mode was pretty terrible and most of what they had the player do was there solely for the shock factor. The story itself had more holes than a piece of swiss cheese. In a way it reminded me of the extremely overhyped movie 2012 ... what I mean by the comparison is that there was no real character development, there were to many main characters to get to know or identify with any of them and the ending lacked closure. Also, the campaign itself felt like it ended as soon as it was getting started ... like I said earlier I didn't get a sense of closure yet at the same time I'm really not concerned whats going to happen next (I won't post spoilers) ...

Obviously the big component of any Call Of Duty game is the multiplayer. For me, the multiplayer has never been all that enjoyable because the maps are for the most part claustrophobic and the action is to run and gun. I would never go as far to say it doesn't require skill just because I suck at it but there are some critical flaws in my opinion that makes it extremely frustrating for a COD noob like myself. The matchmaking is basically non existent: I never get matched up with players around my own skill level and as such I'm always playing against people who are much better than I am and have better gear which gives them an even bigger advantage. Simply matching me with people around my own skill level would help to remedy the situation. I also feel the hit detection is a little wonky and that could have to do with the bullet lag because the game uses a P2P connection.

I'm sure there are tricks of the trade that the veteran players have learned from pouring many hours into W@W and the original MW. But, for someone like me who mainly buys these games for the campaign and not the multiplayer the game simply didn't live up to the hype. It's a fun game yet it's an equally frustrating game.

I think it's only fair to mention one of the things I think the game got right: Spec Ops. It's pretty brilliant re-imagining of Horde mode and is one of the areas in which the game shines. This mode will offer more alot of replay value for veterans and noobs alike. Still, I wish there was a proper matchmaking mechanic for getting into a game but even so the game mode itself is a step in the right direction. Difficult: Yes, Rewarding: Hell Yes.

I'd give the game a total score of something like 85 ... These are just my opinions and it doesn't mean these are universal facts because I said them.

Also forget to mention the obscene amount of camping in multiplayer. It seems like the game is made up of nothing but people camping certain spots.

Around 1 million people who are currently playing the game at this moment disagree with you. Campers? Use heartbeat sensors.

The bullet detection is much better than COD4, and there isn't much lag at all. Anytime there is a multiplayer game that someone thinks is "overhyped" they always talk about how they can't get kills, or it is laggy- some excuse. I used to suck at COD4 since I made the jump from Halo. After a week I got the hang of it, and I started getting better. Practice makes perfect. I know people don't have the time to put into some multiplayer games, but the game isn't tailored just for you. Camping will go away once people learn the maps, and the kill cam is there to help you.

Did you even read my comments or did you just jump to the defense of call of duty?

I went out of my way to say the game didn't suck just that I'm not good at it because it's to run and gun for my tastes. When I play Battlefield 1942 or Bad Company, Uncharted 2, Killzone 2, Socom Confrontation, Gears of war 1 & 2, Halo 3, Half life 2, warhawk or virtually any other multiplayer game I can hold my own yet with any of the call of duty games it's not the case.

I never said the game itself had lag I said it had bullet lag because it's based on a P2P networking architecture. Thats why when you see the kill cams it's usually a shot that hit the air that kills the guy.

Millions of people love the game and they have every right to do so just as I have the right to say I don't particuarly care for it.

I freely admit I suck at it and I put out my reasons as to why I feel that the game isn't that great to me. Maybe if I weren't matched up with level 40's and 50's I'd be a little more understanding and I'd be able to improve.

I'm glad you like it but there is no need to be such a douchebag about it because I have a different opinion.

damn I wish MY 360 came with lego batman and pure instead of worthless lega indiana jones and kung fu panda. hell the dvd case they came in was broken too.

maybe because people knew that mw2 would not live up to the hype and will feel and look the same as mw and have numerous similarities, which it does im afraid to say.

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Modern Warfare 2 makes a killing, bundled games rally in UK sales chart

Reader Comments (34)

Posted: Nov 16th 2009 10:19AM MrSpaceCowboy said

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