List of the biggest launches in video game history

codCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is by all accounts likely to be the best-selling video game of all time. It could top 7 million units worldwide on its first day alone, an incredible achievement despite the fact that the economy is still in a pretty weak state.

Here are the biggest sales records in the game industry for opening day sales. At the bottom, we’ve also included a list of the biggest first-week sales for games in a chart from VGchartz. (Note unit and dollar sales don’t correlate due to price differences).

1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 — 4.7 million copies in North America and UK alone, $320 million, November 2009. Infinity Ward/Activision Blizzard. (Estimated worldwide day one sales: 7 million). Xbox 360, PS 3, PC.

2. Grand Theft Auto IV — 3.6 million copies, $310 million, May 2008. Rockstar Games/Take-Two Interactive. Xbox 360, PC, Ps 3.

3. Halo 3 — 3 million copies, $170 million in U.S., September 2007. Bungie/Microsoft. Xbox 360

4. Halo 2 — 2.4 million copies, $125 million, November 2004. Bungie/Microsoft. Xbox 360

5. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King — 2.8 million copies, $112 million, November 2008. Blizzard Entertainment/Activision Blizzard. PC

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.