A million pay up for Call Of Duty: Elite

Call Of Duty: Elite, the stat-tracking platform that launched alongside Modern Warfare 3 on November 8, amassed a million paid members in just six days, Activision has announced.

In a press release, the publisher claims that more than four million have signed up for the service, which is available for free with a premium version, costing £34.99 per year, offering extra features including clan support and video content.

CEO Bobby Kotick said: "The audience response to Call Of Duty: Elite's premium service has been beyond our expectations, and we want to thank Call Of Duty players around the world for their unprecedented enthusiasm.

"The number of gamers who have registered for Elite further illustrates how this service is poised to redefine social gaming and set a new bar for interactive entertainment."

It's a strong start, and a surprising one given the issues with which the service was beset following its launch. On release day the Elite team admitted that the service was buckling under the weight of demand, and three days later Activision extended all paid subscriptions by 30 days while it worked round the clock to get the service up to speed. Even now, the Call Of Duty Elite website describes the platform's status as "intermittent".

Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg said: "The demand for Call Of Duty: Elite at launch was so overwhelming that for the first several days the service did not perform up to our fans' standards. I want to personally thank our fans for their patience."

It looks like Activision is onto something here: it's made the best part of £35 million in the space of a week, from a service that wasn't fully functional, and is still to launch on PC. Late last week the publisher said Modern Warfare 3 had grossed $775 million worldwide in its first five days on sale - 12.9 million units at $60 each. In other words, one in every thirteen people who bought the game paid up for the Elite premium service almost immediately.