Destiny Breaks Twitch Streaming Records

Bungie's recently released shooter Destiny is not only breaking sales records, but also streaming records. Publisher Activision announced today that, during Destiny's first week since launch, more people watched streams of the game on Twitch than any other console game released so far in 2014.

"To date, Destiny is the biggest console game launch of the year on Twitch," Twitch marketing executive Matthew DiPietro said in a statement. "Our passionate community of broadcasters attracted more than 5 million unique viewers in the first week."

Destiny-related content attracted 20 million views on Twitch during the game's launch week, and fans watched almost 240 million minutes of gameplay during that time. Bungie community manager David Dague said in another statement that seeing Destiny players broadcast their experiences live on Twitch "has been nothing short of amazing."

Destiny launched on Tuesday, September 9, for Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 4. Over the course of the game's first five days on the market, Destiny drove $325 million in revenue.

According to Activision, Destiny's release last week represented the "biggest new video game franchise launch in history." This year's other major new IP launch was Ubisoft's open-world game Watch Dogs, which was released in May. That game saw strong sales at launch, but it appears Destiny outperformed it.

For more on Destiny, check out GameSpot's review and what other critics are saying.

This article has been updated to remove a line comparing Destiny's initial sales to those of Grand Theft Auto V.

Eddie Makuch is a news editor at GameSpot, and you can follow him on Twitter @EddieMakuch