Call of Duty: Black Ops II brings in $500 million in first day sales

Call of Duty: Black Ops II launched a few days ago, and we're now seeing the sales numbers flow in. We already reported GameStop's sales numbers for the new game, but as a whole, Treyarch and Activision have sold $500 million worth of copies around the world, making it the biggest entertainment launch in history.

The franchise's previous record was when Modern Warfare 3 made $400 million in sales last year, which equates to 6.5 million copies sold in the US and UK. We weren't given an exact figure as far as how many copies of Black Ops II were sold on the first day, but it's obviously a lot more than 6.5 million.

Black Ops II moved 1 million copies at GameStop on the first day alone, while Amazon noted that the game became the site's most pre-ordered game ever. Activision will no doubt announce the game's five-day sales numbers, since it did the same with Modern Warfare 3 last year, which scrounged up $775 million in sales in the first five days.

Based on last year's figures, we can only assume that Black Ops II will see an even bigger five-day sales number, which could possibly reach the $1 billion mark (yes, with a "B"). This launch marks the fourth consecutive year in which a Call of Duty game has eclipsed all previous entertainment launches of that particular year.