The week starts off with some great news for games developer Bethesda, with a double whammy of impressive stats for its hugely popular game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
Valve has announced that since launching for the PC via its Steam games platform earlier this month, a huge number of gamers activating through the software have made it the fastest selling game in the history of Steam. Considering that Call of Duty and Counterstrike titles have been available through Steam, it’s quite some feat.
Bethesda has also announced that a whopping 10 million copies of the game have been shipped to stores. Though this figure is impressive, it represents the total number of games sent to stores, not purchased by customers.
We already knew that the game had quickly become a roaring success with console gamers, but Valve’s Jason Holtman has been keen to praise the PC gamers, saying that thanks to them, Skyrim had become “the fastest selling game in Steam’s history”.
Success on PC and console platforms has seen Skyrim rocket to the top of the charts, landing it the prestigious number one spot for Christmas. Both Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and EA’s FIFA 12 have been beaten by Bethesda’s title, making 2011 the first in 8 years that an EA or Activision title hasn’t been at number 1 over the festive period.
FIFA 12 landed fourth spot in the charts, with Modern Warfare 3 coming in third, just pipped by Ubisoft’s new title Just Dance 3, which falls behind Skyrim in second place.
Games consoles and computer games are likely to come high on many people’s Christmas lists this year, and it’s starting to show in the sales figures. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has already hit $1 billion in sales revenue, taking just 16 days to hit that target and beating a previous record set by James Cameron’s Avatar in terms of the number of days taken to generate $1 billion in sales.
Which games are you hoping to find underneath your tree this Christmas?
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