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Activision has said that the first-day shipments for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 are the largest in the history of gaming.

Sales figures for the latest game in the Call of Duty series, which was released worldwide yesterday, have yet to be announced, but what statistics are known all point towards the game being the biggest release of all time.

Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg told Seeking Alpha: "The record number of pre-orders from Modern Warfare 3 drove the largest day-one shipments in our history, and in the industry's history."

Hirshberg added that more than 1.5 million people queued at 13,000 shops at midnight to buy Modern Warfare 3, "making it the largest retail release in Activision's history and in the industry's history."

He also noted that sales of Call of Duty Elite have also picked up in the wake of Modern Warfare 3's release, saying: "We've already had an incredible response to Call of Duty: Elite from the moment it went live.

"Player registration requests for our new live services have exceeded even our most optimistic expectations, which have created some bottlenecks in the registration process."

He added: "We've already registered over 1 million players, and we've been working round-the-clock to increase registration capacity as quickly as possible.

"Keep in mind these issues have no impact on players' ability to play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3."

Modern Warfare 3 is available on XBox 360, PS3 and PC.

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