As Bobby Kotick nestles himself between a cloud masquerading as a mattress and a gold-trimmed white goose down duvet (the goose has the gold trim, not the duvet), his mind can gently waft into unconsciousness, accompanied by the pleasing crackle of bloggers typing "one billion dollars." Activision announced the enormous sales figure for Modern Warfare 3 this morning, claiming the milestone flew by within 16 days of the game's launch. We hope George Michael was adequately rewarded for providing his flattest cover yet.

The information is derived from retailer sell-through data and the UK's Chart-Track service, and is positioned in comparison to entertainment nemesis Hollywood, where 2009's Avatar took longer to reach the same sales (19 in total if you ask Wikipedia). James Cameron's 3D spectacle rested on an awful lot of noses and eventually reached $2 billion worldwide.

Alas, that's an indication of Modern Warfare 3's diminishing returns in the news sphere. Next year, we want to see two billion bucks before we commit a sentence.