Xbox Live hits record 2 million concurrent users

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 largely lived up to sales expectations upon its launch for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC earlier this week. Yesterday, Activision formally crowned Modern Warfare 2 the title of biggest launch of any entertainment product ever, selling 4.7 million units to the tune of $310 million in day one sales for the North American and UK regions.

As it turns out, more than a few who picked up the Xbox 360 edition of the game took it online to check out the game's heralded multiplayer component through Xbox Live. In a post to his Twitter feed, Xbox Live director of programming Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb said that more than 2 million people were connected to the Xbox 360's online service on Wednesday, setting a new record for most concurrent users for the service.

Notably, the record comes on the heels of Microsoft's ban of a reported 1 million users from Xbox Live, on the suspicion that the gamers were using modded Xbox 360 consoles to play pirated games. According to Microsoft's most recent census, Xbox Live has a user base of more than 20 million worldwide.

For more on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, check out GameSpot's launch center.