Activision: Destiny Beta Had 4.6 Million Players, Making It The Biggest Console Beta Ever for a New IP

More than 4.6 million people played the recently concluded Destiny beta, publisher Activision and developer Bungie announced today. The beta kicked off on July 17 for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, before later arriving on Xbox 360 and Xbox One. It came to a close on Sunday, with an exact total of 4,638,937 people participating. This is a record-breaking number.

"This is the biggest beta of this console generation by a wide margin and the largest console beta ever for a new video game IP to date," Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg said in a statement. "Hosting a beta at this scale is an incredible feat, so we're thrilled to see the phenomenal response. But the beta is just a taste of what's to come. We're counting down the days to our launch day, September 9th."

For his part, Bungie COO Pete Parsons said Bungie was "totally blown away by the number of people who played the beta." The pre-release period for Destiny surpassed Bungie's own goals, Parsons added, going on to describe the feedback gathered from the beta as "invaluable."

"We cannot thank the community enough, the response was humbling and in the weeks ahead we’ll be working hard to ensure that Destiny lives up to the expectations at launch," he said.

Activision has high hopes for Destiny, saying earlier this year that it could become Activision Publishing third billion-dollar franchise, joining the likes of juggernauts franchises including Call of Duty and Skylanders. Destiny launches September 9 for Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, and PS4. The PC platform is a "natural fit" for Destiny, but there are no firm plans to bring the game to computers.

For more on Destiny, check out GameSpot's feature about the seven big questions that we have after playing the beta.