sales

According to the NPD figures which were released today, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has officially sold over 9 Million copies worldwide since it’s release!

In addition, the Variety Map Pack we recently released on Xbox Live and soon to be released on PS3 in a week; has broke Xbox Live Marketplace records pulling down over 1 Million downloads within it’s first 9 days. Not to mention pulling down Xbox Live Marketplace in the process when it launched.

Some cool numbers we pulled recently to see just how much gameplay that actually is, shows that Xbox LIVE members played more than 30 million sessions and logged over 30 million hours of gameplay!! We’re talking 1.9 billion minutes logged in the first 9 days!!

If you don’t have the Variety Map Pack yet it’s currently available on Xbox Live Marketplace for 800 MS Points and will be hitting the PSN store on April 24th wordwide for $9.99 and includes four new multiplayer maps.

I knew we had a huge loyal community and it’s always cool to pull specific numbers to quantify just HOW large it actually is. Also, don’t forget tomorrow night is the Xbox LIVE Fire Weekend for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare where you can play with the team here at Infinity Ward and myself from 3 - 6 pm PST (6 - 9 pm EST) as well as sign up to win a signed Xbox 360 Elite (which I have next to me right now here in my office) among other prizes. I look forward to playing with you guys tomorrow as well as our PS3 players in a few weeks when we the maps hit on the PSN. Full details on the Xbox LIVE fire weekend incase you missed the post I made about it earlier can be found here.

A research study done by GameDeveloper magazine, sister-companies Gamasutra.com, and Game Developer Research division has announced the Top 50 Game Developers in the gaming industry today.  The entire report can be found in the March issue of Game Developer Magazine (pictured left) which also has the Call of Duty 4 postmortem written by our Lead Technical Artist Michael Boon and one of our Lead Designers Zied Rieke.

The report was based on reputation and sales data, through anonymous surveys and assessments of sales charts in the US, the UK, and Japan, the number of games released each year, and the average metacritic rating. While the sales data is handy, the all-encompassing approach taken by the study to include reputation, as well, makes this study interesting.

So how did Infinity Ward make out? Well, I don’t need a report to tell me that Infinity Ward is the greatest developer around today, but it’s always nice to see it recognized as such. The top 5 Developers from the list include:

1. Nintendo Kyoto (Brain Age, Wii Play)
2. Infinity Ward (Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare)
3. Blizzard Entertainment (World Of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade)
4. Electronic Arts Canada (FIFA Soccer 08, NBA Street: Homecourt)
5. Valve (Portal, Team Fortress 2)

I have to say that this is a huge honor to be in the company of such amazing developers and to rank #2 of the the top developers world wide is absolutely amazing. According to the report:

The second place went to Activision-owned developer Infinity Ward, thanks to both the resounding critical and commercial success of its 2007 release Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and high scores and healthy praise for the developer’s working conditions, professionalism, and attention to quality.

I can 100% vouch for that statement as there is absolutely no developer that I would rather work for. The report does a great job of breaking down why they were chosen and displaying some of the data used to determine their status. It’s great to see developers like Nintendo, Valve, and Blizzard topping the list with us as they are some of my personal favorite developers.

Meanwhile, in the same issue you can check out a postmortem for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, this time written by our Lead Technical Artist and one of our Lead Designers. It’s a fantastic read and goes over the top 5 things that went right (such as the switch to Modern Setting), and the inevitable top 5 things that went wrong (such as too much desert). So if you’re interested in an honest behind the scenes look and retrospective look back at the development of the game, check it out.

Hit the jump for the list of the Top 20 Developers of the Top 50 report.

Read the rest of this entry »

The NPD numbers for US Hardware and Software sales are in for January 2008 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare holds the #1 spot with the Xbox 360 version and the PS3 version also in the top 10 at #8.

It’s great to see the game keeping it’s top spot for so long after launch, with the new DLC in the works hopefully we can keep it up there with the continued support we give to the game to give players more and more of a reason to pick it up and play with friends. We have no plans to quit supporting the game anytime soon. Also glad to see Burnout Paradise in the top 10 as well, as I’m a huge fan of the Burnout series and Burnout Paradise is no exception. Just unlocked my third Carbon car.

01. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360) - 330,900
02. Wii Play (Wii) - 298,100
03. Guitar Hero III (Wii) - 239,600
04. Rock Band (Xbox 360) - 183,800
05. Guitar Hero III (Xbox 360) - 182,700
06. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) - 172,000
07. Burnout Paradise (Xbox 360) - 144,100
08. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PS3) - 140,000
09. Mario Party DS (DS) - 138,500
10. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (DS) - 133,000

Hit the jump for Hardware numbers and more… Read the rest of this entry »