We all knew Modern Warfare 2 was going to be big, real big.  Activision announce today that Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 set the record for biggest entertainment launch in history: a cool $550 million in the first five days of release. The previous record, $500 million was held by Rockstar’s GTA IV.

Millions of gamers are playing MW2 online

Some more Modern Warfare two numbers:

• More than 11 million achievements were unlocked in Modern Warfare 2 on the first day alone.
• More than 2.2 million unique gamers payed Modern Warfare 2 on November 10th, also setting a new record.
• More than 5.2 million multiplayer hours

In just five days, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has become the largest worldwide entertainment release in history.

The increased sales, despite the current recession, may have also been slightly affected (positively) by the most recent wave of banning modified Xbox 360 consoles from accessing Xbox Live.  Current reports estimate the number of consoles that were “banhammered” at up to a million consoles, although not even Microsoft is willing to confirm these numbers. With flashed DVD drive firmware, these consoles were able to play pirated games and since being banned, these consoles cannot connect to Xbox Live ever again.  While these bannings may have spurred on some more sales of legitimate copies of Activision’s newest hit game, no one can really be sure.