Well all indications are that Take Two’s Bioshock is a resounding success. Take Two has shipped over 1.5 million copies of the game (exact sales figures will come later) and GameStop has said it is their top-selling title at the moment. This is a huge success story (and must be a major relief) for Take Two, who is reeling from the Manhunt 2 and Grand Theft Auto IV delays which will probably bring in enough revenue to offset the delays.
“I’m particularly pleased with the tremendous market response to 2K’s BioShock,” said Take-Two Interactive Chairman Strauss Zelnick. “It is reported we are the top-selling title at GameStop, less than a month since launch. We have already shipped more than 1.5 million units. Clearly we have a new hit franchise on our hands. And this one was developed internally and we own the IP (Intellectual Property). We’re proving our ability to diversify Take-Two’s product portfolio.”
Take Two also pointed out the high score of BioShock on Metacritic, which has Bioshock for PC and Xbox 360 which has an extremely high score of 96/100 (It also has a 96% at GameRanking I might add).
Take Two is now considering turning Bioshock into a sequel franchise in the vein of their Grand Theft Auto series, which would mean sequels every couple years.
“I would say probably roughly an every three year release schedule would be optimal. I expect we would apply roughly the same strategy to BioShock, because BioShock is shaping up to be a very important franchise. I don’t want to say more than that about BioShock because I certainly don’t want to jinx it, but I feel awfully good about where that is going.”
We will have the Bioshock sales numbers as soon as they are available.