Skyrim Sells 3.5 Million Copies In First 48 Hours

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Even though Bethesda is currently rushing to get a patch out to Skyrim players that are having an experience plagued with bugs, it seems like there’s still plenty of reason to celebrate. That’s because Skyrim is a massive hit for the studio, with Bethesda reporting that 7 million launch units were shipped worldwide.

Of those 7 million, Bethesda says that around 50% of the launch units were sold in the first 48 hours. That’s roughly 3.5 million units sold in just two days, which Bethesda expects will generate $450 million. Pretty damned impressive you ask me – especially because it took The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (which was released on March 20th, 2006) until January 2007 to sell three million units.

Make no mistake, the hype machine was running 24/7 for Skyrim. As we drew closer to its November 11th release date, the anticipation was nearly palpable, with anxious players hunting down any information they could about the game. The fact that the game was absolutely brilliant when it arrived probably helped too.

Skyrim‘s success is made even more impressive when you remember that it had to go up against some of the biggest games of the year. Modern Warfare 3, probably the most anticipated game of the year, launched just three days before Skyrim did, with Uncharted 3 landing on shelves only eleven days prior. Battlefield 3 had only been available for a couple of weeks when Skyrim released, and it’s pretty safe to say that it was still selling like hotcakes when Skyrim became available.

In any case, bravo Bethesda! Skyrim is the best game I’ve played all year, and as far as I’m concerned, a game like Skyrim deserves to be rewarded with millions upon millions of dollars. There’s just one small problem: now that I’ve been playing Skyrim, I’m excited to see what Bethesda does with the Creation engine in Fallout 4. Thus the cycle begins anew.