So it turns out that 2K might have fibbed a bit when they said that Borderlands 3 sales were the best thing since sliced bread.
Last week, 2K Games came out with a very impressive press release regarding their latest blockbuster hit, Borderlands 3. Nobody expected Borderlands 3 to be a flop, considering the massive untapped market of looter-shooter enthusiasts that Anthem failed to grab, but neither were we quite expecting Borderlands 3 to be the hottest game of 2019.
To keep the Borderlands 3 hype train going, 2K threw out a bunch of figures including "fastest-selling game in 2K history" and "highest-selling title for PC." And some of these statements might even be true, including the fact that 50% more people bought Borderlands 3 in the first 5 days than they did Borderlands 2.
However, one number might have been a bit of a fib. 2K said that there were 5 million units of Borderlands 3 sold-in, which is not the same as 5 million units sold (that would be "sold-through," to use retail parlance). This means there are still copies of Borderlands 3 sitting on shelves out there waiting for homes.
This also failed to capture Wall St. interest as the actual sales figures were about what analysts expected. Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of 2K Games, saw its stock drop roughly 5% after the announcement.
TweakTown notes that 2K pulled a similar fast one on announcements regarding Mafia III back in 2016, saying that the game sold more than the 4.5 million copies that actually did in the first week.
And while Borderlands 3 may be the new fastest-selling Borderlands game, it still hasn’t hit the 10 million units that Borderlands 2 has sold over its entire lifespan. Furthermore, 2K didn’t provide any figures to showcase pre-sale numbers, which might be indicative of Epic Games Store controversy causing some players to wait for the Steam release in 6 months.
This isn't to say that Borderlands 3 isn't a big deal--it's still one of the most played titles on any system and shows no signs of stopping. It's just not the be-all-end-all release that 2K Games was hoping for.
(source: TweakTown)