It's official: Destiny is a huge success.
Activision announced today that day one sales from the game broke $500 million, making it the biggest launch of a new video game franchise in game industry history. Destiny held the record for most pre-ordered new IP in video game history as well, and it looks like that proved a good indicator for the huge amount of success the game would see on its first day available for purchase.
Activision reportedly invested around $500 million to fund and market the game, which at the time baffled many. If true, it would make Destiny the most expensive video game ever created.
"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," says Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing, in a press release. "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. Most importantly, it's just a great game which we can't stop playing."
More than 11,000 stores opened at midnight worldwide to sell the game to eager fans. The game came in a variety of bundles and packages: A collector's edition that included a talking "Ghost" character prop, a limited edition with various artbooks and a special game case, the standard edition and various digital editions. The game also came bundled with an exclusive white PlayStation 4 as part of Sony's marketing efforts to highlight the game for its console.
"This industry milestone marks another blockbuster success for our company and demonstrates our unique ability to create some of the most successful entertainment franchises in the world," Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, says in the press release. "The success of Destiny, along with the recent introduction of Blizzard Entertainment's Hearthstone, is further validation of our unique capabilities to create great entertainment franchises from the ground up."
While the game is already a financial success and is likely to bring even larger sale numbers before the end of the month and towards the holiday season, to find out if Destiny is a critical success will take a little longer. Developer Bungie chose not to send out advanced copies of the game to members of the press for review purposes, meaning critics are still playing their way through the game like everybody else in order to review it.
Even when the reviews do begin to pour in, Activision won't be too worried. The company has a massive success on its hands.
