Activision has just announced that the Destiny Beta had a total player count of 4.6 million. The specific number was 4,638,937 unique players that jumped onto the Beta before it closed down last Sunday. That is a huge number, and Activision is quick to point out the records their game broke.
This is the biggest beta of this console generation, and the largest console beta ever for a new video game IP
“This is the biggest beta of this console generation by a wide margin and the largest console beta ever for a new video game IP to date,” said Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing. “Hosting a beta at this scale is an incredible feat, so we’re thrilled to see the phenomenal response. But the beta is just a taste of what’s to come. We’re counting down the days to our launch day, September 9th.”
Bungie also responded to the news, with company COO saying “We were totally blown away by the number of people who played the beta,” Parsons said. “We surpassed even our own goals and the feedback was invaluable. We cannot thank the community enough, the response was humbling and in the weeks ahead we’ll be working hard to ensure that Destiny lives up to the expectations at launch.”
The Destiny Beta was open for a total of ten days, from July 17th to the 27th. At first only Playstation gamers were allowed to join, and only if they had preordered the game ore received a code through other means. On July 22nd the Beta opened up on Xbox 360 and Xbox One, again only for preorders. Finally, on July 24th, just three days before the Beta was set to close, Bungie opened the doors and anyone who wished was able to download the game and join in.
Seeing that this many players were on the Beta gives a certain sense of hope. Many games with online functionality like Destiny end up launching in a very unstable state. Some recent examples would be Watch Dogs and SimCity, both of which ha online authentication issues that prevented people from playing. With Bungie already sustaining a surge of players with only a few problems, we should be in for a good launch when Destiny hits PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on September 9th.
