Destiny is set to outshine all that have gone before it, as early signs suggest it is set to be the best-selling game of all time. Michael Pachter, analyst at Wedbush Securities, had bullishly predicted that the game could sell as many as 10 million units this year if it got good reviews. It appears as if Activision have sold close to that many units in one day, if early figures are to be believed.
Holding group Activision Blizzard is the second largest company by revenue after Nintendo, but do not publish games under its group name, releasing titles instead through its individual subsidiaries. Activision announced its ten-year partnership with Bungie in 2010, but Bungie maintained the rights to any new intellectual property. The American video game developers Bungie are responsible for making Destiny, and previously created the hugely successful Halo game.
The gaming group Activision Blizzard took a leap of faith in the game, viewing it as the successor to its hugely popular Call of Duty series. Reportedly investing more than £300 million in the game earlier this year, this commitment appears to be paying dividends already. Early reports are that it made £310 million on its first day on sale, and the game was already being played in over 178 different countries (put this into perspective, there are 196 countries on Earth) only 24 hours after its release.
“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 Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg. “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”.
The game is a first-person shooter game with a science fiction plot, set in a post-apocalyptic world 700 years in the future. It is available in four different versions depending on the console (it is available on the Xbox One and the PS4, as well as earlier versions of the two consoles). These include a bundle that comes with a white limited edition PS4, as well as a ‘Ghost‘ edition for the Xbox, which comes in a limited edition steel case. The white PS4 sold out in advance of its release, and the game itself was the most pre-ordered video game in history, with over 11,000 stores staying open until midnight in order to sell the game.
It has been a good week for the gaming industry in general, as Sony announced last week that the PS4 had exceeded 10 million console sales in the nine months since its release. It has outsold its rival Microsoft‘s Xbox One by three to one over the last quarter.
