Gamespot today is reporting that Activision has sold nearly $1 million in Call Of Duty map content on Xbox Live. CEO Bobby Kotick announced the numbers during a post earnings release conference call. According to Gamespot:

The free bonus pack, which included two maps, tallied 334,000 downloads. The $5 Skirmish Map Pack was downloaded 105,000 times and generated $368,000, and the $10 Invasion Map Pack invaded 66,000 360s and raked in almost half a million dollars.

Obviously, gamers are far more willing to download free content rather than pay. The price point that makes gamers balk doesn’t seem to have been reached. Though the Invasion Map Pack has sold fewer copies to date, the Skirmish Map Pack has been on the market for three more months.

More interesting are the actual dollar amounts. 105,000 copies multiplied by $5 is $525,000. If Activision’s $368,000 reported is their take from these sales, then Microsoft has made around $157,000. From the Invasion Map Pack, Microsoft took in about $160,000. If all of the downloadable content has similar fee structures, the Xbox Live Marketplace has the potential to become a huge cash generation machine for Microsoft. Activision isn’t likely to bemoan Microsoft’s cut, though. Clearly, downloadable content is a great moneymaker for them as well.

The danger of the success of downloadable content means that it makes more sense financially for game companies to have less content in the main game and provide add-ons through paid downloads. Hopefully, this doesn’t become an actual trend and downloadable content remains restricted to nice to have add-ons that don’t impact the fun factor of the original game.