The first week sales figures are in for Ubisoft's big holiday game Assassin's Creed II, and while it hasn't put up the kinds of numbers Modern Warfare 2 was able to hit, it still had a most impressive debut in stores. The game sold a total of 1.6 million games worldwide in its first week, beating out the first installment of the series by an impressive 32%. You might remember that when it launched, the original Assassin's Creed was the highest selling original IP since 2002.

Many feel that the sequel is a better game than the original, with the average review score tending to be 10 or 11 points higher for ACII. Ubisoft made no secret about the fact that in terms of time, resources and overall investment, more would be spent on the second game. Between the sales figures and the critical reception, it looks iike the return on that investment is turning out to be more than Ubi could have expected.

While it may be early to say that ACII is going to meet or surpass expectations (some analysts predicted that the game would need to sell as many as 7.5 million copies to be considered a success), the fact that the game had such a strong opening week has to be good news to Ubisoft. What really remains to be seen is whether or not the game has the kind of legs to keep it at the top of sales charts throughout the holiday shopping season. Be sure to stop back later this week to see Gamervision's full video review of the game to see if it should end up on your holiday wish list.

[Source]