The cash cow that is the Call of Duty franchise continues for publisher Activision. The company announced today that the latest game in the first person shooter series, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, has sold over 6.5 million copies in just its first 24 hours of sale in the US and the UK. It also generated over $400 million in revenues for the publisher in its first day of release.
The massive number of sales for the game also extends to the number of players online in multiplayer matches. Activision said that after the game"s first two days Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 also reached a a new peak concurrency player record for Microsoft"s Xbox 360 game console.
The first person shooter formula for the Call of Duty series is one that, for now at least, a lot of gamers are embracing. There were some questions beforehand if Modern Warfare 3 would suffer from the departure of the co-founders and many of the team members for the franchise"s main developer Infinity Ward back in 2010. But it seems that the team, along with Modern Warfare 3"s co-developers Sledgehammer Games, have produced a game that not only players like but critics have enjoyed as well.
So what"s next for the series? It"s likely that Treyarch, the main team behind 2010"s Call of Duty Black Ops, is currently working on the next installment that will almost certainly come out at this time in 2012. But, only time will tell if the series will continue to grow or if Modern Warfare 3 represents its peak.