Starcraft II sales top 3 million

After shooting out of the sales gate, things aren't slowing down for “Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty”. Activision-Blizzard has announced the game sold 3 million copies in its first month on shelves.  

That secures its standing as the year’s best-selling PC game – and is letting analysts (who were a bit concerned with the early sales numbers) breath a sigh of relief. By the end of the quarter, it’s quite possible that “Starcraft II” may be the industry-at-large’s best selling game year to date.

More encouraging for the company is the 3 million figure still does not include any Korean sales information. “Starcraft II” is still in a free-trial mode there. The first round of those trials are expected to begin ending in September, which will almost certainly result in another big sales bump.

“Starcraft II” sold 1 million copies in its first 24 hours of availability – and hit 1.5 million within the first 48. The numbers would be impressive for any game – but for a PC exclusive, they’re staggering.

It’s also the beginning of a string of big PC titles from Activision-Blizzard. Later this year, “World of Warcraft: Cataclysm” will hit shelves – the latest expansion to the juggernaut massively multiplayer online franchise that has over 11.5 million subscribers paying a monthly fee to play.

And next year, presumably, Blizzard will release “Diablo 3,” the latest installment in yet another fan favorite franchise – that could be an even bigger breadwinner.