Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has had the best ever launch for the franchise on the PlayStation Store, with additional data suggesting a return to form for the gaming industry household name. Anticipation was high for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, sequel to the 2019 franchise entry, especially after last year's Call of Duty: Vanguard failed to perform as well as the series is known to.
Prior news regarding Modern Warfare 2 was already indicating it to be a hit, with an early access concurrent player count on Steam competing against previous titles. Between those figures and in-game footage going viral for how realistic Amsterdam appears, Modern Warfare 2 was experiencing an optimistic period just before launch, but that attitude has quickly soured since the multiplayer's release. However, it seems that diminishing public opinion has not yet translated to a decrease in sales.
In a tweet authored by the official PlayStation account, congratulations were offered to Infinity Ward and Activision for "the biggest PlayStation Store launch EVER for a Call of Duty game." The tweet confirmed that this included preorders and day one sales, before concluding with the reaffirmation that Modern Warfare 2 is available on PS4 and PS5. Although specific figures were not cited, UK physical data is already available, which sees Modern Warfare 2 up 42% compared with Vanguard. Although 61% lower than 2019's Modern Warfare, download data is not currently available, and digital copies now constitute the majority of those distributed, so a comparison as of this moment would not be accurate. Claiming the top spot for the week, Modern Warfare 2's physical sales were overwhelmingly for the PS5, with 53% shipped for Sony's console.
Modern Warfare 2 has been increasingly embroiled in controversies in the days after launch, the majority pertaining to the state of multiplayer, which players have accused of lacking features and being plagued with bugs. Instances of players flying have been noticed in Modern Warfare 2's invasion mode, as well as endless loops of cutscenes during the campaign. Additionally, criticism was levied when it was revealed that the physical edition of the game would come with only 75MB of data on the disk, requiring a further download of over 100GB.
The Call of Duty franchise has been at the heart of a recent dispute between PlayStation and Xbox, with the former citing the FPS giant as a reason why the latter's acquisition of Activision Blizzard could prove anti-consumer. PlayStation has argued to regulators across the world that a franchise like Call of Duty is so essential to business, that exclusivity has the potential to negatively impact the industry. Counters to those claims have involved pointing out PlayStation's own sustained use of exclusivity for virtually all first-party releases, meant to drive hardware sales and attract consumers.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 launches on October 28 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
