‘The Division’ Sells Big, Bigger Than Any Other New Franchise

Ubisoft has a burgeoning hit on its hands with The Division and it isn’t afraid to boast of the online shooter’s performance at launch. The PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC game had a strong first week as the best-selling new franchise, according to the publisher.

The Division broke Ubisoft sales records for the first 24 hours after release. Now the shooter has generated $330 million in worldwide sales during its first five days, per publisher estimates. Additionally, the game has sold enough to be the company’s best-selling title ever in an opening week as well as the game industry’s best-selling new game franchise during the first week of release.

“The Division taking the top spot in the industry for first week sales of a new franchise is a tremendous achievement. We are very proud of our teams, and humbled by and thankful for the millions of players who are giving us their feedback and support,” said Yves Guillemot, CEO and co-founder of Ubisoft. “The Division is the latest example yet of our unique ability to deliver immersive gaming playgrounds that keeps players engaged and that they eagerly share with their friends and community.”

Some of the stats from the first week of The Division include more than 1.2 million users logged in and playing the game at the same time during its first weekend. All those users also managed to grind out more than 100 million hours of playtime during the first week. Additionally, it was one of the top five games viewed on Twitch during that time and generated 56 million views on YouTube.

Obviously, this gives Ubisoft something else to crow about with its new game.

“On top of record breaking sales, player engagement is the highest ever for any Ubisoft title, demonstrating, among other things, that our investments in our online infrastructure and services are paying off,” said Stephanie Perotti, Ubisoft’s vice president of online services. “We are delivering an online experience that’s on par with the best in the industry, and that matches the quality and connectivity demanded by The Division and its players.”

The servers for The Division have held up surprisingly well despite the number of players. There was a brief glitch out of the gate that took the game offline for a couple of hours just after it launched in the United States’ Eastern Time Zone, but it has remained up since then except when brought down purposefully for maintenance. Developer Ubisoft Massive has also been responsive with quick patches and gameplay balance changes for issues the community quickly noticed.

It will be interesting to see how Ubisoft Massive handles support for the game going forward. The studio shared its plans for the first year of content just prior to launch.

The Division will receive two free content updates first before the paid expansions begin to arrive. The first free update in April adds an end-game activity called “Incursions” along with the ability to trade loot during a co-op play session. The second free update arrives in May, and brings another Incursion with it. This time, players will explore New York’s Columbus Circle.

The three paid expansions will kick off starting in June. “Underground” comes first and takes place in New York City’s maze of tunnels and subways, as the name suggests. “Survival” is a different spin on gameplay, challenging players to survive as long as possible by scavenging. Finally, “Last Stand” will be out during the winter, and there is little detail beyond that.

As the Inquisitr previously covered, the Xbox One has timed exclusivity rights to The Division DLC. That means PlayStation 4 and PC players will have to wait approximately a month after the first two paid DLCs launch on Microsoft’s console. There is no mention of timed exclusivity for the third expansion.

[Image via The Division]