• Posted November 16th, 2012 at 09:21 EDT by Mike Harradence
• 6 Comments

Call of Duty: Black Ops II generated an estimated sell-through of over $500 million during its first 24 hours on sale, becoming the largest entertainment launch of the year, Activision has announced.

The publishing giant said that the figure has resulted in the Call of Duty franchise taking the crown for biggest entertainment launch for its fourth consecutive year.

Black Ops II launched worldwide on November 13 and millions of fans marked the occasion by attending over 16,000 midnight openings across the globe. The military shooter also became worldwide top trending topic on Twitter across 23 cities in its first 24 hours on sale.

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick commented: “With first day sales of over half a billion dollars worldwide, we believe Call of Duty is the biggest entertainment launch of the year for the fourth year in a row."

“Life-to-date sales for the Call of Duty franchise have exceeded worldwide theatrical box office receipts for “Harry Potter” and “Star Wars,” the two most successful movie franchises of all time.  Given the challenged macro-economic environment, we remain cautious about the balance of 2012 and 2013.”

“Call of Duty  has become more than a product people buy, it’s a brand people buy into.  And every November we do more than just the launch of a game, we kick off an annual, unofficial but worldwide phenomenon called the Call of Duty season," added Activision Publishing’s CEO, Eric Hirshberg. “I want to thank our incredible team at Treyarch for making an amazing game, everyone at Activision for making this brand a force of nature and our retail partners for their unprecedented support of this franchise. But most importantly I want to thank our millions of fans for their continued support and loyalty and for making us better every day.”

Check out our review of Black Ops II here.