Next Call of Duty: Black Ops DLC Pack Coming To Xbox Live May 3

Activision announced today that the next downloadable content pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops, dubbed Escalation, will come to Xbox Live first on May 3. The new content pack will include four multiplayer maps as well as a zombie-filled Call of the Dead game mode. The release announcement comes as Activision reports players have logged over 2 billion hours playing Black Ops since its November release. Black Ops' first DLC pack, First Strike, sold 1.4 million copies just 24 hours after hitting Xbox Live on February 1, a rate 21 percent better than that for Modern Warfare 2's first map pack. GameStop said 28 percent of all Xbox 360 Black Ops owners bought First Strike from the store in its first week of availability. Microsoft announced the Xbox 360 would receive exclusive first access to all Call of Duty downloadable content through 2012 at an E3 press event last year. Black Ops' First Strike DLC was available on PlayStation Network a month after the Xbox 360 version. The planned PSN release date for Escalation is not yet available. A Gamasutra analysis showed the PS3 version of Black Ops had been purchased by a slightly higher proportion of hardware owners than the Xbox 360 version through February. The game has been purchased by over 31 percent of all PS3 and Xbox 360 owners combined, according to that analysis. Black Ops has sold 13.7 million units in the U.S. through February, according to NPD, making it the best-selling title since the company began tracking domestic sales in 1990. The game is second only to Activision's Guitar Hero III: Warriors of Rock as far as total revenue generated by new retail sales in the U.S., NPD reports.