On October 26, 2000 Sony far surpassed all launch records in North America with the biggest first day sales revenue ever in the history of entertainment. This of course was the full category revenue launch (consoles, games and peripherals) of the Playstation 2, topping $250 million in its first 24 hours.
http://ps2.ign.com/articles/087/087394p1.html
Of course first day sales are not necessarily indicative of sustained success, as Sega proved with the Dreamcast launch at $97 million, the previous record holder, but a record is still a record, and that’s what this thread is about. In fact to this day the only first day launch bigger than the PS2 in North America was Call of Duty: Black Ops; $360m in both NA and the UK, with 5.6m copies sold; 1.4m of which were sold in the UK leaving 4.2m sold in NA, slightly surpassing Sony’s $250m. By comparison, Modern Warfare 2 made $310m for both regions, with 4.7m copies sold; 1.23m in the UK leaving 3.47 in NA, slightly less than Sony’s record.
In any case, the Playstation 2 definitely owns console/system launches in NA, so the question is: Will the Nintendo 3DS’s North American full category launch on March 27th top Sony’s $250 million record with the Playstation 2? My guess is no, simply due to the absence of a Mario or Zelda title at launch, which would provide the added revenue needed to top it.
