Fallout 4 Reveals Mammoth Launch Numbers

Bethesda today announced the strong sales numbers connected to Fallout 4’s recent launch, and as expected, the game is doing extremely well during its early days. While the publisher has a number of impressive stats to hang its hat on, the biggest is that Bethesda launched with approximately 12 million units available around the world, which would add up to more than $750 million in sales once they sell through.

It’s challenging to put those numbers in context, but by way of comparison, the annual release of Call of Duty this year recently reported $550 million in sales. It should be noted that in that case, Activision specifically highlighted that as a number already sold through to consumers. 

In addition to Fallout’s big sales numbers, Bethesda states that some retailers have reported to the publisher that Fallout 4 was the most pre-ordered game of the year, and that the collector’s edition of the game (which included a Pip-Boy for your arm) was the fastest selling collector’s edition in history. Bethesda also reports that that Fallout 4 had the largest number of concurrent players ever on Steam, with over 470,000 players at one point. The companion app on iOS rapidly climbed to the top of the iTunes App Store. And on Twitch, Fallout 4 became the most viewed launch of 2015. 

Fallout 4 released on November 10, and is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. You can read our review here. 

We contacted Bethesda regarding whether the numbers reported indicated sales to retailers, or sell-through to consumers, but the company referred us back to the press release without additional details. 

Our Take
Based on the fervor surrounding the game prior to launch, it should come as no surprise that Fallout 4 has done as well as it has. Along with several other strong 2015 single-player games, Fallout 4’s impressive sales fly in the face of some conventional wisdom that suggests that every game needs an exhaustive multiplayer component in order to be successful.