Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 pre-orders have surpassed Microsoft’s Halo 4 on online retailer Amazon.com’s video game bestsellers chart now that the latter has finally been released.
For the past one to two weeks, Halo 4 has been entrenched in the top spot at Amazon with Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 stationed in the second and third positions, respectively. As soon as Halo 4 made its big debut on November 6, both versions of Black Ops II leapfrogged it and now have a stranglehold on the top two spots.
The irony of Call of Duty annual game launches from Infinity Ward and Treyarch is critics and fans predictably pan the series for lacking innovation from one version to the next, yet sales continue to skyrocket and set records. Last year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 set a single-day sales record wtih 6.5 million units sold in its first 24 hours of release. Not content with one record, Modern Warfare 3 went on to earn a massive $775 million in sales through the game’s first five days of availability.
Those are huge numbers for Black Ops II to go up against, especially considering Modern Warfare 3 outsold the previous CoD entry Black Ops by over 10 percent through its first week. With install bases for the current generation of consoles up near their peak and Black Ops 2 set to appear on Nintendo’s new Wii U console, the Treyarch sequel could surprise and continue the franchise’s legacy of rewriting sales records.
With no new Battlefield game as head-to-head competition and EA’s Medal of Honor: Warfighter failing to live up to expectations, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 should be the go-to shooter on Playstation 3 this holiday season. Xbox 360 owners have Halo 4 to consider, but that game’s first day sales came in at less than half that of Modern Warfare 3.
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