Skyrim Sells 3.5 Million in First 48 Hours

Today, ZeniMax announced that of the 7 million launch copies of Skyrim that were shipped for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC, more than half were sold in the first 48 hours. That's 3.5 million people playing Skyrim.

There was never any doubt that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim would be a big hit. Oblivion was one of the biggest WRPGs released early in this console generation, after all.

Today, ZeniMax announced that of the 7 million launch copies of Skyrim that were shipped for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC, more than half were sold in the first 48 hours. That's 3.5 million people playing Skyrim. Within 24 hours of the game's release, Steam reported over 280,000 concurrent players playing the PC version, and those are just the ones playing with Steam.

"We are grateful for the fans' response to Skyrim," said Robert Altman, Chairman and CEO of ZeniMax. "Todd Howard and his team at Bethesda Game Studios have crafted a very special game. Anticipation for Skyrim has surpassed any game in our company’s history, and we are pleased that sales and reviews have reflected the quality and hours of amazing gameplay it provides."

Speaking of reviews, ZeniMax was happy to take the opportunity to point out that Skyrim has received perfect scores from many review sources, including GamePro and G4TV. It looks like Skyrim is a big deal, surprising nobody.

Staff article by Rhody Tobin (November 16, 2011) Rhody likes to press the keys on his keyboard. Sometimes the resulting letters form strings of words that kind of make sense when you think about them for a moment. Most times they're just random gibberish that should be ignored. Ball-peen wobble glurk.