The cheeky joke among gamers is that the big innovation in Call of Duty: Ghosts is Riley the dog. And Riley has come out on top as Activision announced today that its title is the No. 1 most-played Xbox One game on a worldwide basis.
The Sovereign map combat takes place inside an industrial complex.
Call of Duty: Ghosts is the No. 1 game in North America at retailers Best Buy, GameStop, Target, and Walmart. In standalone Xbox One software retail sales, the game is also No. 1 in the United Kingdom, according to GfK Chart Track, a entertainment marketing and research firm in England. Being in first place in gaming during the holidays is a big deal, since games have become one of the dominant sectors where consumers spend their entertainment dollars. Call of Duty: Ghosts sold-in to retailers more than $1 billion in sales in its first three days on the market. With sales like that, Call of Duty is one of the world’s biggest perennial entertainment properties.
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Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. 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.
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