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It’s only been available for one day, but Activision has already sold more than $500 million of first-person shooter game Destiny. Based on those sales, the Santa Monica-based gaming studio claimed Destiny’s launch to be the biggest in history. Destiny launched at over 11,000 midnight openings worldwide on September 9th.
“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, in a statement. “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.“
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Destiny is made by gaming studio Bungie which signed an exclusive 10 year publishing deal with Activision in 2010. This is the first game Activision has published on behalf of Bungie. Microsoft previously owned Bungie until it spun off into an independent gaming studio in 2007. For Microsoft Studios, Destiny had developed the highly successful Halo franchise exclusively for Xbox. Destiny however is a multi-platform game and was released on Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.
The fantasy first shooter game has been long anticipated. A public beta testing of Destiny in July included 4.6 million players and Destiny’s official launch trailer already has close to 8 million views on YouTube since premiering five days ago. The game costs $60 and Bungie President Harold Ryan said to the Seattle Times that they are preparing to support 20 million unique accounts within the first year of its launch. Activision invested $500 million into game production and marketing of Destiny, a sum that now appears well worth it.
“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,” said Hirshberg. “Most importantly, it’s just a great game which we can’t stop playing.”
