Modern Warfare 2 makes a billion dollars

Activision's record-breaking Modern Warfare 2 has crashed past the $1bn mark after only two months on sale.

That's more money than Capcom made from all its games - including Street Fighter IV and Resident Evil 5 - in the last financial year.

Modern Warfare 2 rewrote the record books when released around the world in early November 2009. Here in the UK, the game sold 1.7m copies and generated £67.4m in five days, blowing GTAIV's previous opening week record of 927,000 units out of the water.

Activision later claimed that Modern Warfare 2 had amassed $550m in its first five days on sale around the world - a figure the eclipses cinema's biggest releases The Dark Knight and Harry Potter.

MW2 would later finish as the US and UK's biggest-selling game of the year.

Yet Modern Warfare 2's success, while staggering, was expected. Infinity Ward's first Modern Warfare game reinvigorated the series, and has sold an outstanding 14m copies to date.

More shocking were rumours that Infinity Ward might not be developing Modern Warfare 3, but pursuing another project while Activision drafts a dogsbody developer to fill the gap.