If you've been playing Bungie's latest release, Destiny, this weekend, you certainly weren't alone, as it looks like the game has quickly become the fastest selling new game franchise ever, managing to ship more than $500 million worth of copies in the first day of release. Although that's retailer purchases more than end users, this is still quite an achievement.
"Based on extraordinary audience demand, retail and first party orders worldwide have exceeded $500 million for Destiny," announced Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard. He went on to suggest that the company expects to sell somewhere between eight and 15 million copies of the game by the end of the year. Over a longer period, it's thought as much as 20 million units could be sold.
If true, that would play into Bungie's plans nicely, as it has previously stated it plans to expand and further develop the game over the next 10 years, treating Destiny like a true shooter MMO. While some reviews would argue it doesn't offer a perfect rendition of either of those genres, it's certainly a popular game out of the gate.
"Since the beginning, we’ve been confident that our investment and belief in Destiny would pay off. But not many people believed we’d be able to say it did so on day one," said Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing. "Destiny is officially the biggest new franchise launch in our industry’s history. It’s also the highest-selling day one digital console release in history. We have more confidence than ever that Destiny will become one of the iconic franchises of this generation, and Activision’s next billion dollar brand."
