Destiny Could Sell 10-15 Million Copies, More Than Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Analyst Says

Activision is making a huge bet on Destiny, and according to one analyst it’s likely to pay off to the tune of 10 to 15 million copies sold, or an estimated $600 to $900 million.

In comparison, Nintendo's Mario Kart Wii--one of the best-selling games in history--has sold-through more than 35.5 million copies life-to-date, and Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V has shipped (not sold) 33 million copies to date.

According to a report from Cowen and Company analyst Doug Creutz that was published by VentureBeat, Destiny could become the best-selling game of 2014. Creutz’ projection is based on “Cowen’s Ordometer,” which estimates how many copies a game will sell based on the number of pre-orders and data from Amazon and the NPD Group’s reports on physical game sales.

According to Creutz, Destiny has the highest Ordometer score in the last four years, and is poised to outsell Activision’s other huge first-person shooter, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. The Cowen 2014 Video Game Ordometer current top five games are:

1. Destiny
2. Halo: The Master Chief Collection
3. Assassin’s Creed Unity
4. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
5. Far Cry 4

A projection based on pre-orders might be skewed in Destiny’s favor because Bungie and Activision have been advertising the fact that players can get into its beta by pre-ordering the game. You can certainly pre-order the other games on the list, but one could argue that there isn’t as strong as an incentive to do so.

Activision’s Chief Executive Officer Bobby Kotick previously suggested that the publisher will invest $500 million in Destiny (which according to Cowen’s estimate means it would still turn a profit), but developer Bungie has since said that the game’s budget is nowhere near that figure.

Destiny launches for Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 4 on September 9. We thought that the game looked promising when we got our hands on the alpha build earlier this month.