Take-Two Games chairman Strauss Zelnick revealed that the hit FPS BioShock has shipped 1.5 million units, and implied that sequels are on the way.
According to a report by Gamespot, Zelnick said, “I’m particularly pleased with the tremendous market response to 2K’s BioShock,” during a conference call with analysts following the company’s third quarter earnings report. “It is reported we are the top-selling title at GameStop, less than a month since launch. We have already shipped more than 1.5 million units. Clearly we have a new hit franchise on our hands.”
Zelnick repeated the “franchise” comment later when comparing its potential to that of the Grand Theft Auto series. “I expect we would apply roughly the same strategy to BioShock, because BioShock is shaping up to be a very important franchise,” he said. “I don’t want to say more than that about BioShock because I certainly don’t want to jinx it, but I feel awfully good about where that is going.”
Take-Two also announced yesterday that BioShock was the all-time highest-rated Xbox 360 game on Metacritic, as well as the year’s highest-ranked game across all platforms, garnering an aggregate score of 96/100 across 29 reviews. The BioShock demo also set a record for “fastest to 1 million downloads” on the Xbox Live network. “We are really pleased that Microsoft’s Xbox Live Marketplace has managed to attract a record number of gamers to its site to download and check out BioShock,” 2K Games President Christoph Hartmann said. “We’re excited about the reception the fans have given BioShock and are honored that the game has been recognized as “Game of the Year” material.”
