Destiny pre-orders on track to be largest ever for new IP despite industry-wide decline

Despite an "industry-wide" decline for video game pre-orders, Bungie's upcoming MMO shooter Destiny on track to become the most pre-ordered game ever for a new IP in the industry.

Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg tempered the announcement, noting that preorders are "just one data point" that the publisher looks at when "determining the momentum" of a franchise like Destiny.

"We also look at our quantitative studies surrounding things like purchase intent and awareness and we're seeing strength in those areas as well," he said.

"It's also important to just sort of reset expectations as it relates to preorders overall," he added, pointing out the overall decline in pre-orders among video games. "You guys can see the same thing we see industry-wide, that there's been sort of a secular downturn as it relates to preorders."

Hirshberg attributed the down to a number of factors including things like increased digital consumption, "particularly on the next-gen consoles," titles being widely available on day one, and the decline overall for demand on last-gen systems. For that reason, Hirshberg opted not to share specific pre-order numbers and instead called Destiny's awareness at "an all-time high and climbing when compared to any other new game intellectual property this distance from launch." Purchase intent is "similarly at an all-time high and rising," he added.