Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII made $500m in its first three days on sale.

That's according to figures released by publisher Activision, which revealed that the franchise is flat year-on-year. 2017's WWII made the same figure in the same time frame.

They are still well below the $550m that Black Ops III scored, but way ahead of 2016's Infinite Warfare which barely made half of that figure. 

All of which explains the spin-heavy release that Activision launched earlier this week which focused on the pretty inevitable growth of digital in the current games market.

Activision claims PC is still up year-on-year, seeing more than double the sales of WWII compared with 2017. Additionally, Black Ops IIII has seen the highest viewership on streaming platform Twitch for the franchise to date.

"Black Ops 4 is off to a blockbuster start," Activision EVP and GM for Call of Duty Rob Kostich said.

"Our player counts and hours played are up year-over-year, our viewership on Twitch has set new standards and is showing just how fun Blackout is to play and to watch, and the weekend results yet again put Call of Duty at that highest tier of entertainment. Our digital sales results have been record-breaking across all platforms, and the overall performance strong."