While Activision and Bungie have not disclosed actual sales numbers for Destiny on day one, they have shared that “the company sold more than $500 million of Destiny into retail stores and first parties worldwide as of day one.”

It doesn’t always mean that a game will sell through all the copies sold to retailers but it is a good indication on pre-order numbers and interest from customers.

“Based on extraordinary audience demand, retail and first party orders worldwide have exceeded $500 million for Destiny,” said Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard. “This industry milestone marks another blockbuster success for our company and demonstrates our unique ability to create some of the most successful entertainment franchises in the world. The success of Destiny, along with the recent introduction of Blizzard Entertainment’s Hearthstone, is further validation of our unique capabilities to create great entertainment franchises from the ground up.”

Destiny was available on midnight around the world in 178 different countries and at over 11,000 midnight launch events.

“Since the beginning, we’ve been confident that our investment and belief in Destiny would pay off. But not many people believed we’d be able to say it did so on day one,” said Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing. “Destiny is officially the biggest new franchise launch in our industry’s history. It’s also the highest-selling day one digital console release in history. We have more confidence than ever that Destiny will become one of the iconic franchises of this generation and Activision’s next billion dollar brand. Most importantly, it’s just a great game which we can’t stop playing. A big thanks to our incredibly talented team and partners who helped make this happen; most importantly, our partners at Bungie.”

While it still seems a little too early to say that Destiny made back its development money in day one, I’m sure actual sales of the game are to be huge. Hopefully we’ll get some clarification on that actual number soon.