It’s kind of unfair comparing video game revenuews to movie revenues. Video games run for $50 a pop at least, while average movie ticket price is listed at $7.18. So it takes 49 million tickets for Avatar to make $352 million, while it only takes 11 million buys for Call of Duty to make $550 million.
Video games cost more than movie tickets yes, but then MW2 is
# 1. Adult rated, so leaving out a big chunk of the population
# 2 . Bought mostly by young adult males, leaving out women, old folks and most of the population.
# 3. Has over 90% of it's sales on the XBOX 360 and the PS3, which combined have an install base of just 60 million.
# 4. Avatar on the other hand, is open to the entire 6 billion population on the planet, including housewives, grand parents, etc, plus lots of people pay multiple times to watch it.
All that makes MW2’s records even more impressive.