Apparently, a lot of you have plans to pick up a new game tomorrow.
Publisher Activision, which is distributing Bungie’s Destiny, revealed today that the sci-fi shooter is the most preordered franchise debut ever. While established brands like Call of Duty or Assassin’s Creed may have had higher preorders for their latest releases, no new intellectual property has had more gamers plunking down their cash ahead of release than Bungie’s mulitplayer online title. Destiny launches for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 tomorrow, and Activision has it primed to reach blockbuster status.
“We feel that we have the opportunity to launch something huge,” Activision Publishing chief executive officer Eric Hirshberg said in a statement. “Not just into the gaming landscape, but [into] the pop cultural landscape. Arriving at our launch day with this much support and enthusiasm from fans and retailers is downright exciting. Moments like this just don’t come around very often.”
While Hirshberg’s comments ring of executive grandstanding, he does have a point. The $60 price tag for games makes many consumers afraid to take a chance on something new. That’s why sure things, like sequels, typically do better than brand-new properties. But for Destiny, gamers don’t seem to have their typical risk aversion.
Of course, Destiny isn’t just any new game. It’s the first new franchise from Bungie since Halo. On top of that, Activision has poured an estimated $500 million into its production and marketing. It is hard to ignore.
In addition to the pedigree of the developer and Activision’s staggering promotional budget, the publisher has positioned Destiny as one of the premier new-gen games for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. While you can get Destiny on last-gen consoles, most of the excitement related to the release comes from the fact that it is a triple-A online shooter that looks like it takes advantage of the power found in Sony and Microsoft’s latest hardware. As we’ve previously reported, PS4 and Xbox One owners are extremely hungry for software. Since November, Sony’s system has an attach rate of more than three games per console.
Finally, Destiny also hits at the end of a summer bereft of notable triple-A releases. With gamers starving for high-quality content and Activision spending millions on marketing, it makes sense that Bungie’s first new-gen outing is the most preordered new intellectual property ever.