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Black Ops II makes US$500m day-one heist

The next instalment of the popular Call of Duty series has proved to be unsurprisingly popular in its first 24 hours of sales.

Nic Healey Senior Editor / Australia
Nic Healey is a Senior Editor with CNET, based in the Australia office. His passions include bourbon, video games and boring strangers with photos of his cat.
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Nic Healey

The next instalment of the popular Call of Duty series has proved to be unsurprisingly popular in its first 24 hours of sales.

(Credit: Activision)

As a game with the words "Call of Duty" in front of it, Black Ops II was always going to be big. The original Black Ops managed US$360 million in its first day of sales, but it's successor has smashed this, with half a billion dollars of US currency being generated in just 24 hours.

Black Ops II had midnight sales launches in 16,000 stores around the world, with the hype over the game hitting near-fever pitch levels.

Compared to Halo 4's US$220 million launch day, this looks unbelievable, but it's worth noting that CODBLOPS II is selling across Xbox, PS3 and PC platforms, while Halo 4 (the seventh game in the Halo series) is exclusive to Xbox — as has been pointed out by more than a few readers.