By Tom Magrino, GameSpot

Activision claims Infinity Ward’s latest shooter breaks host of 24, 120-hour entertainment records spanning games, movies, books.

Taking into consideration just North America and the UK, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s launch could be considered a resounding success. Two days after Infinity Ward’s modern military shooter November 10 launch on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC, Activision said that the game had sold 4.7 million units in the two aforementioned territories in 24 hours, generating revenue in the neighborhood of $310 million.

Modern Warfare 2 brought in more than half a billion dollars within a week.

Today, Activision returned to provide more blockbuster Modern Warfare 2 sales statistics. According to the publisher’s internal estimates, Modern Warfare 2 generated $550 million during its first five days on the market, a figure that sets a new entertainment record for the period. Activision did not provide a unit-sales update, however, and had not responded to requests for clarification as of press time.

The publisher did make claim to a variety of first-and five-day entertainment records spanning movies, books, and games. Beginning with the most direct comparison, Activision claims Modern Warfare 2 bested Grand Theft Auto IV’s first-day worldwide game sales records of 3.6 million units and $310 million. The game also apparently busted GTAIV’s five-day global haul of 6 million units on $500 million of gross revenue.

As for other media, Activision said that Modern Warfare 2 broke Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’s five-day global box office record of $394 million. The game also eclipsed The Dark Knights’s first- and five-day domestic theatrical opening, which stood at $66.4 million and $203.8 million, respectively. Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows‘ first-day book sales record of $220 million was also surpassed.

In terms of usage, Activision said that more than 5.2 million hours of multiplayer matches were played through Xbox Live on November 10. The publisher also noted Xbox Live’s new concurrent user record of 2.2 million following Modern Warfare 2’s launch, before saying that some 11 million achievements were earned within 24 hours.

Check out GameSpot’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 launch center for more on the top-selling shooter.

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Credit Due: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6240625.html

Posted in BBC

Tens of thousands of people have been cut off from playing their Xbox games online. Microsoft says they’ve banned certain gamers from their Xbox Live service because they may have been modifying or “chipping” their consoles to play pirated games. One Radio 1 listener Raz says he was gutted to be cut off just as he was about to play the new Call of Duty game.

“My name’s Raz, I’m 25 years old, I’m a massive Xbox gamer. I play every day after work and all day on the weekends.

The Xbox for me is just about playing online, that’s why I love it – well did!

It was a big day yesterday, the latest game we’ve been waiting months and months for. We’ve played the whole series and this one’s come out, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

All loading up, everything’s going well, I was happy. It came on to the start screen of Call of Duty and I thought, ‘Do you know what, let me quickly sign in online’. I sign in online and next thing I see, ‘Your console has been banned from Xbox’.

I was pretty distraught at the time, I can’t remember exactly what it said but I saw the words ‘banned’ and I was gutted, completely gutted.

At first I was in shock, I mean it’s always at the back of your head using pirate games you know there’s that possibility but you haven’t heard about it, there’s been no warnings and you haven’t heard it happen to anyone in the last two years.

I wasn’t expecting it. I was just like, ‘OK, what do I do now? Is this just a joke?’ So I thought, ‘Let me restart the Xbox’. I restarted, signed in again, same message. I did that three times, same message. I was pulling my hair out thinking, ‘No, why me?’

It’s like telling someone their dog’s just died. It was pretty much like that for me. I love it, I love playing Xbox live. I play with my mates all the time. It’s just a good laugh, we all sit there chatting, playing games. Now I don’t know what to do.

Microsoft’s banned a “small number” of 20 million Xbox Live users worldwide

I still think they should lower the prices. There are 16-year-old kids out there, they don’t earn money so they go screaming to their parents saying, ‘Can you buy me this game?’

Fair enough, one game once in a while but the amount of games coming out, good games, everyone wants to play them all. And for them to pay £50 a game?

I took it into a shop [the Xbox], there was a guy back there and I asked him and he did it for me [chipped it]. He charged £75 to get it chipped but at the end of the day I said to myself I’ll pay £75 to get it chipped, after two games I’ve paid the money back.

I’ve probably saved about £600 and I’ve copied roughly 30 or 40 games. A lot of them I’ve downloaded or I’ve taken off friends that have downloaded themselves.

To be honest, I’ve contemplated whether to move to Playstation 3 or buy another Xbox. I wouldn’t do it again but I really don’t know if I’m going to get the Xbox again now.”

A streaming games service – “cloud gaming,” as the buzzphrase has it – is on Microsoft’s horizon but, for the near-term, it’s not something that can be reasonably delivered to a local-machine user, said the Europe boss for Xbox Live.

Speaking at the London Games Festival, Jerry Johnson told an audience at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts that cloud gaming, such as the on-demand OnLive platform announced at GDC 2009, isn’t a mass market likelihood “for the foreseeable future.”

“Streaming technology is something that the industry is betting on longer term,” Johnson said, according to TechRadar. “Right now I don’t believe that technology can scale out against the experience we can offer on a local machine.”

“The technology will continue to improve,” Johnson said. “As an industry we’ll have to accept that and move with it – but I don’t think it’s on an accelerated timeline for the foreseeable future.”

Johnson’s remarks came during a panel discussion of “Digital Distribution and the Future of the European Games Market” at the London Games Conference. As trendy topics go, this one set out to answer when digital downloads might overtake retail sales of boxed games.

Analyst Nick Parker said that might happen around 2014. He also said, speculatively of course – because that is what analysts do – that it wouldn’t surprise him to see “one new entrant” to the console game – namely, Apple, Inc. – produce a dedicated console. Apple gamers such as myself shrugged and/or snorted.

Microsoft Dismisses ‘Cloud Gaming’, Analyst Predicts Apple Console [TechRadar]

Send an email to the author of this post at owen@kotaku.com.