Modern Warfare 3 breaks pre-order records, Black Ops sells 20 million expansion packs

In case we'd forgotten how mind numbingly huge Call of Duty is, last night's Activision earnings call dropped some massive sales figures to jog our memories. Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg announced that Modern Warfare 3 "drove the largest day one shipments in our history and in the industry's history."

That follows the fact that "Pre-orders for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 outpaced pre-orders for Call of Duty: Black Ops by a wide margin, setting a new industry record in making it the most pre-ordered game of all time."

The continued success of Black Ops is even more surprising. On the same call, Activision last night revealed that they've 20 million Black Ops expansion packs, at £11.50 each. That's a cool £230 million in sales. "The revenues generated from map packs alone would make it the third largest console title of the year," said Hirshberg.

Activision announce that they made $148 million this year between July and September, up from $51 million last year. There was no mention in the conference call of enormous money hats or swimming pools filled with gold bullion, but Activision did announce that they plan to make more money next year, with even more map packs for Modern Warfare 3. Now I have to go and grab a cup of tea and stop trying to imagine what $148 million looks like in dollar bill form.