Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War brings in the highest day one digital sales for the franchise

Black Ops Cold War
(Image credit: Activision)

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is already making a big impact on the games industry and its franchise. Activision announced that day one digital sales for Black Ops Cold War added up to become the highest in the history of the franchise.
A statement from Anna Malmhake, the Activision Blizzard's EMEA managing director, said that "friday's release of Black Ops Cold War set a new record as the highest first day digital sales worldwide in franchise history."

The statement also went on to say that Activision intended to deliver for these fans by releasing "an incredible amount of free post launch content, events and support for the entire community as Black Ops Cold War evolves just as we did last year with the release of Modern Warfare." 

See more

While the title was quite successful in terms of digital sales, the boxed sales for Black Ops Cold War did take a hit. As reported by Games Industry, launch sales for the boxed version of the title were down over 64 percent in the UK compared to Modern Warfare's release last year. Those figures are, of course, limited to the UK market, in which many stores selling physical games have been closed due to the coronavirus.

Regardless of the boxed numbers, of course, it looks like Black Ops Cold War has been successful for Activision, especially with a large share of game purchases being done digitally due to the COVID pandemic. Activision definitely seems plenty pleased with the performance of the title, which says a lot about the overall success of its release. In Malmhake's statement, she made a point of thanking Call of Duty's players and stating that "launch is just the start," so it players can expect plenty to look forward to in the wake of the successful launch.

Get all the details on the Call of Duty franchise by checking out our list of the best Call of Duty games.

Freelance writer

Kai Delmare is a freelance journalist and news writer with bylines at GamesRadar+. During her time at GR, Kai focused on writing breaking gaming news and reporting on some of the biggest industry trends.