call of duty: modern warfare 2

If what you've really been missing is a 10-pound, 10-inch statue of the Noble Team, the team of fighters that are the heroes of the hotly-anticipated video game Halo: Reach, then don't fret. Your time is coming soon.

Mere mortals may scoff at the need for such a collectible, but true Halo fans know that those who end up with these icons are going to be the envy of the many who can't get their hands on them. Thankfully, everyone will have the same chances of ending up with one.

On Thursday, Microsoft and Bungie unveiled the details of the Halo: Reach "limited" and "Legendary" editions, both of which are now available for pre-order and will be released sometime this fall. As previously reported, the Halo: Reach beta will begin on May 3. The game will be an Xbox 360 exclusive.

The limited edition, which will cost Halo fans $80, includes the game disc and manual, as well as a game disc "housed in recovered ONI 'black box;'" an Elite armor set that players can use when they're in multiplayer mode; and an artifact bag with the personal journal of Dr. Halsey, as well as "other classified documents and effects that unravel long-held secrets from the Halo universe."… Read more

After the best month in its history, the video game industry in January returned to the pattern it followed throughout 2009: sharp year-over-year monthly declines.

According to a report Thursday from industry analyst, The NPD Group, video game sales across the board were $1.17 billion in January, down 13 percent from $1.34 billion a year earlier. Hardware sales were worst hit, down 21 percent year-over-year, while software was down 12 percent.

It's likely that the December numbers, when the industry turned in record sales of $5.53 billion, and January's poor performance are linked. Huge numbers … Read more

Video game software sales across the world's three largest markets--the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom--fell 8 percent in 2009, according to a joint report issued Wednesday by a consortium of industry analyst firms. The UK led the way with a 14 percent plunge.

But one title that can't be blamed for the difficult year is Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The fastest-selling video game of all time turned in sales of 11.86 million copies in the three markets, despite only being released in November.

The annual Top Global Markets report, which is … Read more

After a 2009 dominated by lower year-over-year monthly sales figures, the video game industry turned things around in a huge way just in time for the holidays, recording its best month ever, reported analyst firm The NPD Group on Thursday.

According to NPD, the industry turned in U.S. sales of $5.53 billion in December, up 4 percent from $5.32 billion a year earlier. While it could not have been any more of a relief to the companies in the video games business that they had finally turned in a month of year-over-year growth, the December results were … Read more

For an entertainment property to hit $1 billion in sales is a very rare feat. For two separate properties to pass the 10-figure mark at the same time may well be a first.

On Wednesday, Activision Blizzard announced that its mega-hit video game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, had crossed the billion-dollar mark, after just two months on store shelves--and the entertainment industry's single-day sales record. That milestone came shortly after it was announced that James Cameron's uber-blockbuster movie, "Avatar," had also reached that financial promised land.

To be sure, these are just round numbers, and don't have any formal meaning, but there's no arguing with the fact that it sure sounds good for the entertainment business to be sporting two separate billion-dollar titles at the same time, especially since they come from such different corners of the world.

In the history of video games, a billion-dollar hit is an extreme rarity. It's hard to tell precisely how many there have been, but it's possible that number is as small as two.… Read more

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has set several records this year, including the most units sold in a single month (over 6 million in November alone). But according to TorrentFreak, a site that covers the world of torrent downloads, the game was also the most pirated title of 2009.

According to the site, Modern Warfare 2's PC version was downloaded on torrent sites a whopping 4.1 million times, which is more than twice as many downloads as 2008's most-pirated game, Spore. The Xbox 360 version of Modern Warfare 2 was downloaded 970,000 times.

Those numbers … Read more

The video game industry just keeps on seeing its sales numbers decline, in spite of a huge month for Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and the crucial holiday month of November was no different than the last nine months of 2009. For the month, according to industry analyst The NPD Group, sales across the entire video game business were $2.7 billion, down 7.6 percent from $2.92 billion a year earlier.

Yet, NPD added, industry-wide sales were so high in 2008 that even despite this November's significant drop, the month was still the second-best … Read more

So we've all heard that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, released Tuesday, broke all kinds of sales records this week and is being touted as the biggest video game release of all time. But that's coming at the same time that we get word of some less-than-good data from The NPD Group: the video game industry was down a staggering 19 percent in sales in October.

Some say the much-anticipated Modern Warfare 2 could give the industry a boost, but it might not be enough.

As a self-proclaimed influential tech journalist and longstanding pundit of the absolute … Read more

U.S. video game industry sales plunged in October, dropping 19 percent from a year earlier, and 16.4 percent from September, according to data released Thursday by the NPD Group.

But with the tremendous, record-breaking, out-of-the-gate performance of Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and the coming holiday season, NPD is bullish on the industry's fortunes for November.

Still, the $1.07 billion in total sales turned in by the industry in October were paltry, compared with $1.32 billion in October 2008 and $1.28 billion in September 2009. NPD analyst Anita Frazier tried to … Read more