Age of Conan ships 1 million

Today Funcom sent out a press release with the title "Age of Conan Reaches One Million Milestone." At first glance, many took the headline as meaning the Norwegian developer's massively multiplayer online role-playing game Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures had already enrolled 1 million subscribers. That would be a mean feat, given that it had only 400,000 subscribers last week.

However, the 1 million figure refers instead to the number of Age of Conan games shipped to retailers, not units sold or actual subscribers. Of those, 500,000 units had shipped in North America, with the remaining half earning Funcom harder currency over in Europe. The game has topped sales charts on both sides of the Atlantic, where press outlets have given it enough critical praise for it to rack up a solid 84 Metacritic average.

Despite any perceived shipped/sold/subscriber discrepancy, the game has hit an impressive milestone. It's a milestone that, according to Funcom, has not been achieved by any MMORPG since a certain Blizzard Entertainment title was released in 2004.

"Sales data shows that Age of Conan is the biggest MMO launch since World of Warcraft," Funcom vice president of sales and marketing Morten Larssen declared. "The numbers are very promising, and we are very proud to be one of the fastest selling PC games ever during launch month and the biggest simultaneous Europe/US MMO launch in history."

For a complete rundown on Age of Conan, check out GameSpot's full review of the PC version of the game. Funcom is also developing an Xbox 360 edition, which has yet to receive a release date.