COD4 maps break Xbox Live record

By Ellie Gibson Published 18 April, 2008

Been downloaded a million times.

The Call of Duty 4 Variety Map Pack has become the most downloaded paid-for content on Xbox Live.

More than one million downloads were registered in the first nine days the pack was on sale. The full game has been purchased by nine million people and Xbox Live users have taken part in more than 30 million online sessions, racking up more than 30 million hours of gameplay.

The COD4 map pack contains four maps - Broadcast, Creek, Killhouse and Chinatown - and costs 800 Microsoft Points (GBP 6.80 / EUR 9.60). Find out whether it's worth the money by reading our review. The map pack will be released for PlayStation 3 on May 1st.

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About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 7 months ago

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  • asphaltcowboy #1 4 years ago

    Wow...

  • Apostle #2 4 years ago

    Another feather in the cap of Infinity Ward.

    Broadcast is great fun, yeah. I like the map in Search and Destroy mode, where bombsite B is overlooked from the roof, it makes things very interesting as people jump down as the timer runs out in desperation to defuse/plant only to be mowed down by gunfire. :)
    Edited by 1 at 18/04/08 @ 10:57

  • Dizzy #3 4 years ago

    Rolling in money!

    10 million euro for 4 maps ;)

  • Lebowski #4 4 years ago

    Any sign on the UAV of more maps for CoD4? Seeing as this first batch has made a couple of quid.

  • Rich72 #5 4 years ago

    bought them and wish I'd never bothered. same with the halo maps.... until they are integrated into the mainstream lists i think they are pretty useless. i know halo did it if all players had the maps but this, in practise, rarely happened.

  • mcmonkeyplc #6 4 years ago

    Jebus! Bungie am cry!

  • mattigan #7 4 years ago

    Rich72

    Er.... they are integrated into the playlists, and if you've got them you are pretty much guaranteed to play them at the very least once every 3 games. Well, all the maps except killhouse which it think only comes up in cage match games.
    Edited by 1 at 18/04/08 @ 11:20

  • Ghost_Dog #8 4 years ago

    Are these the same maps as the ones included in the new Game Of The Year Edition?

  • Rich72 #9 4 years ago

    i stand corrected. my t'internet is down for a while while bloody sky sort out my connection. do they appear too much though? i know in halo pretty much everyone veto's the new maps. i know COD's are far better but are they appearing more than the old maps?

  • prolific8 #10 4 years ago

    And yet Halo is still the better online experience. Funny.

  • Dizzy #11 4 years ago

    "And yet Halo is still the better online experience. Funny. "

    IMHO CoD4 and Halo 3 do not compete. Together they fill all the gaps for FPS fans (CoD for quick kills, class based play and tweaking and Halo 3 for more tactical play, vehicles and better matchmaking). You should enjoy and love em both.
    Edited by 1 at 18/04/08 @ 11:24

  • mattigan #12 4 years ago

    They do appear a lot, but they are very good.

    I think the draw of COD over Halo is in it's realistic modern day setting, Halo is all jumpy multicoloured power rangers shooting each other with lazors. Where whith COD gives a much more visceral experience, and you get a real feeling of weight with the guns being real world ones.

    Or maybe it's just me.

  • Rich72 #13 4 years ago

    i love them both equally in my hippy kind of way..... i'm such a slut

  • CannonAnBall #14 4 years ago

    Every now and again you get a Halo player in COD that still carries on the 'jumping'. Looks a bit gay seeing military dude jumping around. It's not like it's a proper jump for crying out loud!

  • prolific8 #15 4 years ago

    Actually, they're both fine online games. I just prefer Halo for it's rewarding of skill over "who has the best gun because they've been playing longer".

  • Rich72 #16 4 years ago

    " Shhh... Halo 3 is a dull jump fest. Factoid."

    play against level 40's and higher and tell me that.....

  • BadBoyBonner #17 4 years ago

    Saddening that a release of such low value has become the all-time Xbox live download champ.

    Half my mates have bought it and half haven't - I haven't.

    Would rather put the money towards getting GTA IV - an extra £6.90 off (800 MS Points) should make it feel like a bargain!

    Maybe infinity ward will make the maps free - eventually, but that seems unlikely judging from the sale.

    I can't help but feel that the pack was far smaller than they would have liked just so they could get it out a few weeks before GTAIV. If they add anything further I hope the extra content is free to anyone who has already bought the pack.
    Edited by 1 at 18/04/08 @ 12:42

  • BarcaAzul #18 4 years ago

    This is bad news for consumers. It will lead to more DLC that offer little for what you have to pay. I still think its a rip off!!

  • Xerx3s #19 4 years ago

    9 million copies sold?! 0_o

    Last time I checked it was stuck at 4. Oh well, I guess actual quality & support isn't all that.

  • AHiFi #20 4 years ago

    I bought the Halo 3 Legendary map pack instead. Avalanche is brill. I think I made the right choice. =)

  • MasterNameless #21 4 years ago

    @ Rich 72 "" Shhh... Halo 3 is a dull jump fest. Factoid."

    play against level 40's and higher and tell me that....."

    Whoever said that stated that it was a rather dubious fact anyway. Although they may well have not realised it.

    Factoid actually means...

    A factoid is a spurious (unverified, incorrect, or invented) "fact" intended to create or prolong public exposure or to manipulate public opinion. It appears in the Oxford English Dictionary[1] as "something which becomes accepted as fact, although it may not be true", namely a speculation or an assumption. The term was coined by Norman Mailer in his 1973 biography of Marilyn Monroe.[2] Mailer described a factoid as "facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper", and created the word by combining the word fact and the ending -oid to mean "like a fact".[3][4]

    Source: Wikipedia.

    Just like people always think 'witty' means funny, when it actually means intelligence.

    ------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------

    Personally though, I agree with Dizzy. they are very different games and difficult to compare. I really like COD4, but am currently pretty bored with the whole Run, Hide, Run, Kill, Run, Hide, Die, repeat until infinity(no pun intended) mechanic of COD4. I find Halo 3 far more varied with the differing gameplay styles with vehicles, tactics and more varied playlists. Of course, forge and theatre mode add a whole lot of variation too.

    After playing over 80 odd hours of both games, as much as I enjoy COD4, I do feel that Halo has more legs. In the long run. Pun intended that time!

    I have also bought all the expansion packs as I actually think they are worth it, but probably only because I play them enough, for both games - to justify the cost. Comparing the cost to say... renting a DVD, and the amount of time spent playing the new maps/watching a rented DVD, the value for money is about 20:1, probably even more! Favouring the map packs that is, of course.

    edit: spelling and grammar! And final paragraph!
    Edited by 4 at 18/04/08 @ 15:42

  • miiiguel #22 4 years ago

    Factoid! LOL! I bet he didn't mean to say it (aka didn't know what it means).

  • Hypercube #23 4 years ago

    @prolific8 - the guns gained at higher levels often don't make a difference. I've been killed just as much by the lower level weapons as by the higher ones. A good skill at FPS games will always be better than someone with all the perks and the highest rank guns who likes to stand still a lot and admire the scenery (e.g. me).

  • beastmaster #24 4 years ago

    Have you seen what happens when you leave the title screen on and the movie kicks in? Very clever GTA 4 Promo.

  • David_Snakes #25 4 years ago

    Still an awful deal

  • james-mw3-mw3 #26 7 months ago

    It's funny that Modern Warfare 3 had a major amount of leaked information revealed by the press. I'm thinking that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 leak was intentional; There wasn't any leak for this Call of Duty game, nor MW3!