Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 shattered sales records when it launched last November. The wildly popular first-person shooter sold an estimated 6.5 million copies and pulled in more than $400 million during its first 24 hours of availability, and more than 12 million copies were purchased over the game’s launch week, racking up about $740 million in revenue. But Activision isn’t done, of course, and the next major launch in the Call of Duty franchise is shaping up to be a big one. ”The next Call of Duty will bring meaningful innovation to the series,” Activision Publishing chief Eric Hirshberg told The Guardian. The executive wouldn’t elaborate on exactly how the next major CoD release — presumably Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 — might revolutionize the popular game, but he undoubtedly piqued the interest of millions of gamers around the world. Despite being released in mid-November last year, Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was still the best-selling video game in the U.S. last month according to recent data from market research firm The NPD Group. (more…)