Borderlands 3 has long been one of the most anticipated titles in Take-Two Interactive Software’s lineup, but few were expecting the demand to be this strong.
The game, released on Sept. 13, sold 5 million copies in its first five days on shelves, the publisher said in a statement Monday. That makes it the best selling title in the history of Take-Two’s 2K Games division. It also means the Borderlands franchise has generated over $1 billion in sales life to date, only the second 2K title to do so.
Analysts have long had high expectations for Borderlands 3. Mike Hickey of the Benchmark Company had forecast sales of 8 million units of the game this year. Eric Handler of MKM Partners expects the company to sell 12 million.
The game sales also gave some insight into how consumers are buying games today. 2K says 70% of consumers who bought the game in the first five days did so digitally. And sales of the PC version of the game through the Epic Games store have been particularly strong.
Like its predecessors, Borderlands 3 blends fast-paced action, role playing and slapstick comedy. The game did not launch without controversy, though. Randy Pitchford, the head of Gearbox Software, the company developing Borderlands, has faced a number of accusations. Gearbox’s former general counsel filed a lawsuit accusing Pitchford of, among other things, taking a secret $12 million bonus that risked reducing the royalties that other employees ultimately received from the latest installment in the series. (Pitchford has countersued.)
Gearbox isn’t ignoring the controversy, however. On Monday, the developer announced it had hired Dan Hewitt, a well-liked, longtime veteran of the Entertainment Software Association, the video game industry’s trade group and the group behind the annual E3 conference, to join as chief communications officer.
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