Red Dead Redemption 2 tops 17 million copies shipped

Red Dead Redemption 2 launched to critical and commercial acclaim, and now we have an idea of just how well it did from a sales perspective: Rockstar Games has shipped more than 17 million copies of the open-world Western, parent company Take-Two Interactive announced Wednesday.

That staggering figure represents sales as of today — which means that Rockstar sold that many copies of Red Dead Redemption 2 in just 12 days, since the game launched Oct. 26 on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

These are sell-in numbers rather than sell-through numbers, meaning that the physical copies included in the 17 million total are units that were shipped to retailers rather than purchased by customers. But any way you slice it, it’s an unbelievably impressive tally.

The launch week was even more impressive. Take-Two noted that in Red Dead Redemption 2’s first eight days on the market (through Nov. 3), the company sold more copies of the game than it sold of the original Red Dead Redemption during its first eight years of release. That game debuted in May 2010, and by February 2017 — almost seven years after launch — Take-Two said that sell-in numbers had reached approximately 15 million units. In other words, Red Dead Redemption 2 sales topped 15 million copies in eight days.

Red Dead Redemption 2, said Take-Two, has “exceeded our sales expectations to date.” Last week, the company announced sell-through of $725 million during the game’s first three days of release. That was second only to another Rockstar title, 2013’s Grand Theft Auto 5, which generated $1 billion of revenue in its first three days.