The Call of Duty franchise has now exceeded $40 billion in lifetime franchise revenue, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has confirmed.
She shared this milestone following the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 on October 23. "Congrats to the team. And to the players, thank you for being with us," Sharma wrote.
Sharma did not, however, share any insights into how Modern Warfare 4 is performing, or if it was MW4 that pushed Call of Duty over $40 billion. All her statement says is that "now" Call of Duty has reached $40 billion, and that $40 billion is an "incredible milestone."
Whatever the case, $40 billion is a big number. The series debuted 23 years ago in 2003, and has seen new installments annually since. Beyond mainline entries for PC and console, the Call of Duty franchise has expanded into the mobile market and the battle royale genre with Call of Duty: Warzone.
No doubt the $40 billion figure includes sales of the main games, along with in-game content for them, as well as spinoffs and ports. Activision also surely got a fee from Paramount to make the Call of Duty movie, and it's possible this revenue is counted toward the $40 billion total as well.
Activision does not disclose development or marketing budgets for any of its games, including Call of Duty releases, so there is no way to know anything about their profitability levels. Some developers more readily share sales specifics like break-even points, but not Activision.
Activision has relied on the brand power of the Modern Warfare and Black Ops games for a long time, but a brand-new sub-series for Call of Duty is now in the works. In addition to this, Activision will develop new Halo games going forward.
Modern Warfare 4 boasts a very impressive 86 on GameSpot sister site Metacritic currently. For more, check out GameSpot’s MW4 review, which covers the campaign, DMZ, and multiplayer. If you’re just getting started, you may also wanted to check out our rundown of the best MW4 multiplayer loadouts.