The accolades bestowed on Activision/Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare 2 continue to roll in, the most recent one coming from the ruddy cheeked mystics at Guinness. The leprechauns have put their tiny little heads together, and issued a press release declaring that the November 11th release of MW2 is now officially the most successful entertainment launch of all time. Of course Activision made this same claim the day after the game came out, but everyone knows by now that nothing really happened unless it's written down in a book published by the same people that brew beer.

As a reminder of the competition that MW2 trounced on its way to the world record status, the first day sales came in at $401.6 million, surpassing the former record holder Grand Theft Auto IV's $310 million on its first day in 2008, and blowing away the former former record holder Halo 3, which in 2007 brought in $170 million.

Guinness Editor Gaz Deaves (yes, that's his name) spoke about the record, sounding more like this announcement was inevitable than merited, "The fan movement and hype surrounding this game in the run-up to launch was almost unprecedented in scale; we acknowledged early on that the big question wasn't if it would break all-time entertainment records, but rather by how much."

Robert Bowling, one of the three people still working at Infinity Ward, was also elated by the late-coming praise, "This achievement is a reflection of the support from our community of fans around the world. The Call of Duty series and Modern Warfare have been our passion - we've dedicated our lives to giving our best, so it's an honour to be recognised by setting a new standard among all entertainment properties."

While no one in April of 2010 should be surprised that MW2 sold a ton of games, it's got to feel good for the creators to be acknowledged in a book that was created to make it easier for besotted debaters to settle bar bets. And although MW2 followed a trend of surpassing the previous year's record holder, I'm not sure if there are any games slated for release this year, or in the near future, that could put up these kinds of first day numbers. Only time will tell.