The month of November has been punishing and glorious for the gaming industry this year, game publisher Activision Blizzard has announced that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has climbed a milestone and cast down yet another gaming record: exceeding $1 billion dollars since it’s launch debut on November 8, 2011.

That $1 billion mark crossed for the gaming release just 16 days after its release and it continues to swell. According to an article out in IndustryGamer, this beats James Cameron’s smash blockbuster hit Avatar in box office sales and that Activision brags a CoD community of more than 30 million gamers worldwide.

“Engagement of our Call of Duty audience continues to rise around the world,” said Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard.  “Call of Duty as an entertainment franchise has made an indelible mark on popular culture and its broad and continued success is further validation that audiences increasingly value interactive experiences over passive experiences.”

We might recall that Blizzard is the publisher of the wildly popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game, World of Warcraft and that they recently celebrated their 7^th birthday. While subscriptions to the service may be flagging off; Activision Blizzard as a publisher has seen record profits. A fact largely understood as due to the popularity of the Call of Duty series.

Not to be left out, the Activision side of the two-headed behemoth felt the need to chime in with Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing speaking up as well.

“Call of Duty has become that rare entertainment franchise that transcends its own genre. Core gamers love it, as our stellar reviews show. But every year, new people are drawn into Call of Duty,” said Hirshberg, speaking to gamers and community in general. “And while the franchise continues to set records, our fans still seem to want more, demonstrated by our record setting start on Call of Duty Elite. We are committed to helping everyone connect, compete and improve their game, Call of Duty style.”

This put Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in the top place as the most popular game sold November 2011. Not far behind in sales and hype was Bethesda Softworks’ The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim coming in second, EA’s Battlefield 3 in third place, Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed: Revelations as runner up.

Microsoft sold 1.7 million Xbox 360 consoles in the U.S. in November

No doubt adding to the total number of players available to purchase Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Microsoft moved 1.7 million of their Xbox 360 consoles in the United States during the month of November, an increase of 23 percent compared to the same period last year.

No doubt Black Friday sales helped boost this number to where it is now, as reported on SiliconANGLE, Microsoft sold almost 1 million consoles during the biggest sales week for Xbox in history.

According to Microsoft’s numbers, total retail revenue for the Xbox 360, which includes hardware, software, and peripherals sales, edged out at $1.4 billion for November 2011 in the U.S.

In terms of sales, this showed Xbox 360 crushing the competition with Nintendo moving only 860,000 consoles and Sony didn’t release their numbers (although they claimed a 70% increase in hardware sales.) PlayStation has never sold extremely well due to its extreme pricing so it’s unlikely it exceeded the 1.7 million units of Microsoft’s deserved braggadocio.