Modern Warfare 2 PC first-week sales top predecessor

Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 faced its share of prelaunch controversy. Above and beyond a contentious level in the game's campaign mode, many PC players were particularly peeved with the game's lack of dedicated server support.

While boycotts were threatened and more than 220,000 gamers signed a petition asking developer Infinity Ward to reconsider dedicated servers, sales of the PC edition of the game don't appear to have been affected greatly. In a post on the developer's official forums, community manager Robert "fourzerotwo" Bowling revealed that, "The PC version of Modern Warfare 2 has actually outsold the PC version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in it's [sic] first week. Making it the most successful PC version."

Bowling's note about the sales came in a thread claiming the PC version to be a flop because it only accounted for roughly 3 percent of all Modern Warfare 2 sales in the UK. The community manager addressed the figure, saying it was evidence not of a PC flop, but rather overwhelming success of the console editions of the game.

The PC version of Modern Warfare 2 is by no means the only one outperforming previous installments. Activision estimated that across platforms, the game brought in $550 million worldwide in its first five days of release, outpacing previous blockbuster games like Grand Theft Auto IV, films like The Dark Knight and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, or the book release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.