Call of Duty: Modern Wafare 2 has surpassed one billion dollars in sales. That's more than I can count to on one hand, so I'm going to go ahead and say that's a lot of money. Seriously though, I can't think of another single game that's reached that plateau so quickly, so in spite of Activision publishing the game, I'm tipping my hat to Infinity Ward. Well done, gentlemen.

I'm sure there can't be more than a dozen video games that have total sales figures including ten figures, and the number that managed to make more than $999,999,999 in less than three months has to be even fewer. It's impressive no matter how you look at it. Oh sure, you could say that games have never been more expensive, which isn't true (Remember the free-for-all pricing days of the Nintendo 64?), but even at $60 a pop, there are very few games that even come close to making a billion, let alone in so short a time.

Of course, there's no telling what's going to happen this year. There are a few games shipping in 2010 that have a chance to do just as well as MW2, like Final Fantasy XIII, God of War III, or Halo: Reach, but achieving the same sales as Soap and team isn't going to be an easy task. With Infinity Ward claiming that they're not going to be making Modern Warfare 3, it'll be interesting to see if any game can match what they've done with Modern Warfare 2.

You can be rich by association by reading the press release below.

Activision Blizzard, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) announced today that Infinity Ward's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 continues to set sell-through records crossing the $1 billion mark in retail sales worldwide since its launch in November, according to internal Activision estimates.

In its first five days alone, the game sold an estimated $550 million worldwide, outpacing five-day worldwide theatrical box office gross figures for such films as Avatar, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and The Dark Night, according to internal Activision estimates and boxofficemojo.com.

"Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 2 has exceeded our expectations and shattered theatrical box office and video game records," said Robert Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard. "There are only a handful of entertainment properties that have ever reached the $1 billion mark, which illustrates the power of the Call of Duty franchise and mass appeal of this game."