Activision cashes in with $500 million opening day for Destiny!
When Bungie first announced their departure from the HALO universe and most of all Microsoft, many investors and fans had doubts the long-time many had doubts the Bellevue, Washington video game company would be able to capture magic from loyal fans. Activision, the publisher for the Call of Duty series would soon enlist Bungie to their roster and heavily promote the upcoming MMO-open world and first-person title, Destiny.
After a 2-year campaign, the game was finally released to the public yesterday and went to sell than $500 million in retail and digital. It’s gone on to become the most successful new video game franchise launch of all time and also garnered the highest digital day-one sales in console release history. While future installments to further the Destiny series are looming in the coming years, Activision released a statement saying,
“Based on extraordinary audience demand, retail and first party orders worldwide have exceeded $500 million for Destiny,” said Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard. “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. 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.”
“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. Most importantly, it’s just a great game which we can’t stop playing. A big thanks to our incredibly talented team and partners who helped make this happen, most importantly, our partners at Bungie.”