Diablo 3 becomes the fastest selling PC game of all time, Blizzard has revealed. The game sold 3.5 million copies in less than 24 hours and is sitting pretty at 6.3 million units, and this does not include the WoW promotional ones.
“Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that as of the first 24 hours of Diablo III’s release, more than 3.5 million copies had been sold, setting the new all-time record for fastest-selling PC game. That number does not include the more than 1.2 million players who received Diablo III as part of signing up for the World of Warcraft Annual Pass promotion.
“Altogether, more than 4.7 million gamers around the world were poised to storm Sanctuary on day 1 of Diablo III’s release — representing the biggest PC-game launch in history.”
Blizzard were quite ecstatic at these sales but also mentioned that the preparations to handle such a launch had been inadequate, and they simply weren’t expecting that.
“We’re definitely thrilled that so many people around the world were excited to pick up their copy of Diablo III and jump in the moment it went live,” said Blizzard co-founder Mike Morhaime. “We also regret that our preparations were not enough to ensure everyone had a seamless experience when they did so.
“I want to reaffirm our commitment to make sure the millions of Diablo III players out there have a great experience with the game moving forward, and I also want to thank them for their ongoing support.”
The retailers were pretty pleased, too.
“Diablo III was one of our biggest PC launches ever and will help make this a record year for Blizzard at GameStop,” said SVP of merchandising at GameStop, Bob McKenzie.
“Not only did Diablo III break the record for most preordered PC game of all-time on Amazon.com, but it also shattered the record for best day-one sales for any PC game ever on Amazon.com,” added director of video games at Amazon.com, John Love.
Blizzard has also released some hotfixes which sees the Monk being nerfed along with other changes. Here’s the reasoning for it via Bashiok, Blizzard’s community manger. Full patch notes will be revealed soon.
“The Boon of Protection rune was approximately ten times over its budget on the benefits it provided, and it was quite simply a mistake on our part to let the rune ship as it was. We don’t intend to take these quick and drastic measures often, but considering the severity of the issue, we felt it important to correct it swiftly.”
So, is PC gaming dead? Uh, I don’t think so. Check out our review of the game if you still haven’t bought the game yet.
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