Modern Warfare 2 enlists 25 million unique players, Bowling says

by David Hinkle on Mar 9th 2010 10:06AM

It's not so surprising, really, that Modern Warfare 2, arguably the world's most popular video game, would recruit such a staggering amount of bodies for its perpetual online war. But, there it is: 25 million unique players, as revealed in a tweet from Infinity Ward's community guy-at-large, Robert "fourzerotwo" Bowling. We've contacted Infinity Ward for specific platform numbers, but in the meantime, Bowling offers a bit more to chew on:

He confirms the majority of players are taking the fight to Xbox Live, but he says the PS3 comes in at "a close" second. That puts the PC space in third, though it's still enlisted "millions," according to Bowling. But, what about that boycott? Oh, right.

Now, it should be noted that Modern Warfare 2's reported 25 million players aren't necessarily all on active duty. Surely, more than a few steadfast soldiers have taken up positions in DICE's Battlefield: Bad Company 2. No rest for the weary, eh?

Source

Tags: activision, call-of-duty, infinity-ward, Microsoft, modern-warfare, modern-warfare-2, psn, steam, Xbox-360, xbox-live

Reader Comments (57)

I guess they had to let out some sort of news. Wouldn't want Bad Company 2 to try and steal the thunder from them or headlines..

even though i like mw2, alot, just like halo has become, this is the turning point for the cod series. they have probably one more game in them before their out..

So not paying for Live makes you poor? I refuse to pay because theres no reason to when *almost* everything on Live i can get on PSN. And PS3 is my main console, so go figure.

I'm one of those that defected from CoD4(xbox) over to MW2(PS3), thank you for being free to play on PSN.

Welcome to the family :-)

Me too.

I find the PS3 controller to be much better for quicker movements because the sticks and buttons are less stiff than the 360's controller and has a lot less dead space than the 360's controller.

Greetings! Glad you saw the light!!!

@Jason

The sticks in the DualShock 3 are 10-bit precision, the Xbox 360 sticks are 8-bit, so you'd notice a difference.

My brother in law did the same thing. He's poor too.

oh noes, how will i live without that 60 bucks a year.

@Jason

That's interesting. I find the concave sticks on the 360 more comfortable for small adjustments in shooters and prefer the the Xbox's actual triggers over Playstation's R2 and L2 buttons.

To each his own, I guess.

who cares. ima just be honest, the whole arcady feel to MW2 just grew old with me. I grew tired of maps getting nuked and thus putting no team element to the game. 25 million is a huge number but i rather play with 5,000 good ones

Not sure who you're playing against. I've seen a nuke once in the whole time I've been playing this game.

Team deathmatch on hardcore is 100% awesome

Yeah Hardcore is way different from regular/ground wars deathmatch....

most of the complaints i hear about MW2 are almost completely bypassed by playing search and destroy, which is literally the only game mode i play.

I sold MW2 for BC2, best decision I ever made. I got BC2 for £26 new too!

I think I need to do this so I can get some money for God of War 3... Damn being a dual-console owner sucks sometimes... =/

why would you sell a great game to buy another great game? why not just buy another great game? then you have 2 great games! 2>1, everyones happy.

the battlefield fanboyism on this page is rediculous.

MAG is exclusive (and a new IP), even if there were more PS3 gamers playing it over MW2, it still wouldn't get those numbers, unless PS3 was selling thrice as many consoles as the Wii and Xbox. So comparing it is silly, as for BC2, its only just come out dude, give it a chance :/

Why do the graphics look so good in that picture? I don't recall them being that good

There are quite a few variables in play here, but I can attest that, with my 360 hooked up via HDMI to my Samsung LCD at 1080P, this game does look THAT good.

MW2 is fun, not suprised it did so well, admitedly though I've been playing MAG and BC2 more recently.

The urge to play COD4MW again is overwhelming :/

I had the urge to go from MW2 back to MW1 and was going to do it, but then BF:BC2 came out.

If they do end up having map packs for MW2 that have MW1 maps, that'll bring me back to MW2.

Few games can, champ, that's why it's news.

I'm one of those people....but I played for a few days and left it alone, not my cup of tea.....

BFBC2 on the other hand.....

is that a screen cap of 3 dudes on the heli pad shooting at a turret?

No, it's a dude.

LOL. Why do people keep saying BFBC2 are going to steal their players. Sorry Battlefield is not that popular. As much as I hate MW2's multiplayer, I always laugh when I here this.

I just got BF:BC2 and trying to find a buyer for it, all people to is just battle it out with vehicles. I find it funny that people complained when WaW had 2 tanks, yet have no problem here where multiple times my side get overridden by vehicles to no end.

I stopped playing after about a week, moved back to MW1

I see the same thing... Although Joystiqers tend to go against the majority.

I for one cant stand BFBC2 and love the fluid controls in MW2..

25 million players, and I'm not one of them.

I played it at a friend's house after being told it was 'miles better than the first'. It was exactly the same.
Am I the only one who thinks MW feels like its all happening 'underwater'? By that I mean everything looks slow and the characters have to strain to move their arm.
Gears 2 is good now there aren't any quitters/kids on because they are on MW2, but I'm still playing Serious Sam HD.

There's a lot of idiots in the world.

It's really not a good game. CoD4 is far better.

Somewhere Bibby Kotick is roaring an evil laugh while thunder crashes in the background.

MW2 was fun and all, but it can't compare to the awesome that is Bad Company 2. Have you ever had your entire squad wiped out in a building by having the entire thing brought down on top of your heads in MW2? Didn't think so.
I will say this though, the controls in MW2 are a little bit easier to get used to. Maybe just a personal preference.

Well I decided to stick it to them in the used game market over all this nonsense about Kotick's little coup. Honestly MW2's stupid twitch gameplay got really monotonous fast. Couple that with the knifing ninja bullshit and exploiters and it became a prime candidate for the 50% bonus trade at gamestop toward BC2 and FFXIII. I wish i could delete my account from the 25mil unique user list and pretend it never happened. I wish Blizzard would seperate from Activision like they did from Vivendi before it's too late.

25million pah bullshit, let's work it out, the ps3 can have up to 3 accounts per console so that's more like 8million genuine accounts, bet they didn't remove the banned xbox players so there's another million or two including the new accounts people would have made after being banned. Do you think they're trying to distract people from the whiting they're gonna get from activision lol. Bunch of lame lazy pricks, hope activision screws u for everything!

Which is why there will always be people MW2. Most of them would rather run around rambo style with their dual shotguns (Really? Ever tried firing a shotgun in real life?) then work as a squad. The whole point of BC2 is that you can be overrun, no matter how good you are, unless you work with the rest of your team. If you don't have an engineer to protect your assault class from armor, who is relying on the medic to stay alive, you will lose every time.

probably counts even if you played once, i haven't played in months and i'm sure that i'm on that list.

"the only thing COD4 does better than MW2 is its story but who actually does care about that?"

You're part of the problem. Single player first, multiplayer second. Not the other way around.

Bad Company 2 puts this watered-down, aim-assisted, glitch-infested GameBattles babies game to complete and utter shame. If BC2 is the equivalent of NYPD Blue, then Modern Warfail is Blues Clues. Have fun sniping people from 40 feet away MW2 fanboys! The real players are sniping people at 400 yards in BC2.

Modern Warfare 2, So easy, a caveman could do it. Yeah I stopped playing because of the noob tube and those damn killstreaks. I also couldn't stand that people camp like crazy in the game. The maps are small in MW2 so a sniper in a good spot is hard to kill because he/she could see everything and it's hard to get around him/her without being shot. Sniping is very easy is MW2 because there is no drop to the bullets so anyone can be a sniper. Now there's a lot of snipers in BFBC2 but few are actually good at sniping. Sniping in BC2 requires skill. You have to move because the maps are so big that people can sneak up behind because you can't see the map from just one spot.

Why do BCBF2 fans always find the need to put down MW2? The reviews are out and the consensus says that BCBF2 isn't as good or polished as MW2, and that is with the supposed shitty MW2 campaign that every internet hipster loves to bash.

BCBF2 is by no means a shitty game but the more I hear from internet contrarians about how MW2 sucks monkey dick compared to BCBF2 it leads to a couple of conclusions to me.

1. You suck at MW2.

2. You think The Beatles suck because everyone likes them.

3. You are a pasty PC elitist poo poo face who thinks the elimination of dedicated servers is just as bad as your mom dying of cancer.

Dude I could not have said it better myself.

MW2 is undeniably a multiplayer game first, whatever your warped opinion may be.

Singleplayer comes first, in games built for one player.

Well I don't suck at MW2, I just got tired of dying because of a killstreak. I was killed more by a killstreak than by an actual bullet or knife. Why should I be killed by a killstreak when I didn't even die yet? It's not my fault that other people on my team suck. Why am I being punished for someone else's lack in skill? Plus all the glitches made me stop playing. Not everyone that stopped playing MW2 sucks at it, we just prefer a game that isn't so noob friendly. By the way, I love the Beatles and I could care less about dedicated servers.

I revel when the opposing team has a blitzkrieg of killstreaks. I go marathon, coldblooded, and commando pro and rip the other team as they stare up at the skies seeing their little vehicles trying to kill my shitty team. They don't expect me to come up to their face when they have a C130 in the air..

Yeah I agree, I hate it when I get kill by some some chopper or something more then a bullet... oh wait there is always a tank, chopper, or something up in BFBC2. I like BFBC2, but the combat focus pretty much around the vehicles. It's not that bad in MW2 as well now that care package glitching has been fixed. Just switch to a stinger with cold blooded, take it out and go on about your day.

The funny thing is, it seems like a lot of people didn't expect BFBC2 to do well especially with MW2 out. EA/Dice were smart by releasing it 5 months after the giant COD released. That gives enough time for people to be bored with COD and want to try something different (for the players new to the BF franchise). I like both games but think BFBC2 is better. COD has too many things wrong with it imho, but then again it's almost too hard to compare them because they are so different. One game is a team tactical strategy based shooter and the other is a arcade style run n gun. I'm just glad to see that there's something for everyone.

I wish all that money had gone to Demon's Souls. MW2 feels too similar to COD2 for me, so I don't look forward to a sequel to the franchise.

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Modern Warfare 2 enlists 25 million unique players, Bowling says

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