Record $500m sales for Black Ops II

The latest Call of Duty videogame had sales of more than $500m in the first 24 hours of its release, a new record, game publisher Activision Blizzard Inc said yesterday.

By comparison, Microsoft Corp’s sci-fi action-shooter Halo 4, launched a week earlier, had sales of $220m in its first day on the market.

In 2011, Activision reported first-day sales of about $400m for its latest game at the time, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, and sales of $1bn after 16 days.