Diablo IV is Blizzard's Fastest-Selling Game of All Time - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 06 June 2023 / 3,523 Views
Blizzard Entertainment announced Diablo IV was the fastest-selling game of all time in the company's history, with pre-launch unit sales on PC and consoles.
In the four days since early access started on June 1, there have been over 93 million hours played or over 10,000 years.
"This is a moment years in the making for the Diablo IV team," said Diablo general manager Rod Fergusson. "We’re extremely proud to offer players the richest story ever told in a Diablo game. Players have a range of choices, including personal character customization, equipping personalized skills for battling horrific demons, or collecting Legendary loot to support your playstyle while discovering new ones. Since the game was first announced in 2019, the support from millions of players around the world drove us toward this release of our dark vision of Sanctuary. Hail Lilith, Blessed Mother."
Blizzard Entertainment president Mike Ybarra added, "Our vision at Blizzard is to create legendary experiences for all to share, and Diablo IV is an incredible realization of that vision. With highly customizable gameplay, gripping storytelling, and plenty of options around how to engage with the world, this masterfully crafted expression of the Diablo universe is an outstanding example of what our talented development teams are capable of. Whether you’re a veteran of the series or diving into Sanctuary for the first time, we welcome players to the global launch of Diablo IV."
Diablo IV is available on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Diablo IV was my personal pick for the highest selling game of the year. Off to a great start! It's good to see Blizzard finally nail one out of the park after so long lol.
wasn't the latest CoD also a homerun 🤔
It was, but I only care about Blizzard lol. I've been playing Blizzard games since the original Diablo 2. I still hold out for the day RTS Warcraft makes a proper return and not that abomination Blizzard tried to pass off as a Warcraft 3 remake lol
Ho got it, for some reasons I read the blizzard and thought ABK. It sure doesn't help with the fact all their titles are on decades long schedule XD.
I expected Hogwarts Legacy to be the year's biggest seller but at this point TotK is a real contender as well. Hope we get numbers for all three.
easier when the game is released into 5 platforms.
Yes and no. Diablo is definitely one the biggest franchises in gaming which is helping a lot, but, unlike Hogwarts Legacy that has a specific version of the game for current-gen and last-gen consoles that you can separately buy, like you can buy the PS4 or PS5 version individually, Diablo IV doesn't offer that. You can only buy the cross-gen bundle when you get the game on console as the cheapest option. So that inherently means less sales overall since there's only one sku per console platform. And there is no Switch version in the pipeline either.
So it looks like Diablo IV is just that big of a game.
This is very well deserved :) Microsoft must be happy to see that, they will basically have 2 of the most selling games this year under the Xbox umbrella soon enough :D
"93 million players" surprised me for a sec but after checking the article it's 93 million hours played by players. Didn't say how many copies sold but judging by the fact that Diablo 3 sold 3.5 million in its first day so more than that.
And Diablo 3 was on PC only for almost the first year and a half. So I'm guessing around 5 million in the first day?
? not sure what u mean.
I was just wondering rather than asking an actual question lol. Ignore the question mark
Looking at the article what they're actually saying is that it had the most pre-orders for any Blizzard game, which is hardly suprising given that the game has been playable for 5 days before launch if you pre-ordered. Not much to compare it to directly in that case, but their previous record would probably be Overwatch or Diablo III.
D4 is also the first Diablo game to launch simultaneously on multiplatforms. So that helps the sales boost.
Congrats to it, will pick it up sometime as played D3 a lot but not at full price, not with all microtransactions and battles passes in it, iron out the bugs if there are any too.
Isn't this heavily littered with lootboxes and microtransactions?
Yeah, to me, those things belong in a FTP game. Not when the game is premiumly priced.
Congrats to Blizzard on this launch. Nice to see these sales and everyone paying full price on all platforms. :)
It looks solid, but I'll probably wait for it to come to gamepass, Zelda is more than likely the only game I plan on buying this year.
Gonna buy it when it's complete! That 70 bucks plus dlc gonna burn a hole in my wallet
Wonder if we will see a platform break down.
PC will be highest for sure. That's always where Blizzard's main and biggest audience is.
They dont want people to know
To know what? That the PC outsold all other platforms? Take the tin foil hat off for once.
The hell you so triggered for my boy?
No offline mode and not a fan of the art style. I loved 3 but if I ever play this some changes will need to be made. Mainly offline SP mode and a bunch of updates and expansions.
Offline SP will never happen since it's taken the MMORPG aspect of a shared open world. Not as big as WoW's but that's how the game was built. 2 expansions have been confirmed to be in development though.
Maybe they designed the game specifically without this but if so, I'd argue it wasn't the best idea. Not only it's a big detriment to people who prefer to play single player/offline but it also means that the game will definitely die when the servers are shutdown.
Definitely. I've never been a fan of online only games unless they're MMORPG's that are meant to be online. Diablo IV is more Destiny 2 and less World of Warcraft though.
Even Diablo 2: Resurrected requires an internet connection.
And for that reason I just now removed it from my wishlist
The moment the servers ever shut down.. you would be long gone from playing this game. So why does that matter?
WoW has been online since 2004
I'm still playing games from the 80s and 90s on original hardware. Also I can own them. Diablo has traditionally not been an MMO and easily offline and SP. Activision/Blizzard are just scumbags.
Blizzard is not a company where you need to worry about servers shutting down.
You can still play the original Diablo on Battle.net which came out in 1996, 26 years ago.
StarCraft 1 is still playable on Battle.net which came out in 1998, 24 years ago.
WarCraft 1 is still playable on Battle.net which came out in 1994, 28 years ago.
I think we can rest assured this game has a very long life ahead of it if Blizzards track record of server/battle.net support is any representation.
I did not know this. Thank you for providing this information. I appreciate that they support their games for such a long time though personally I wish they still offered a single player/offline option for people like me. I played both Diablo 1 and D2 without ever using the online (I just played with LAN/ local co-op for D1 on the PS1) and I had a great time with both.
If they ever shut the servers down, Diablo 6 would have released.
"The moment the servers ever shut down.. you would be long gone from playing this game. "
How can you know that? I still play games I've bought 10+ years ago. Plus, I don't play online games. Diablo 1 and 2 are perfectly playable without online. I think they should've stuck to that.
The Art Style is the best part
Grey and brown and realism. Boring, went through that phase in the 360 era. I prefer more gothic and fantasy elements of 3.
