According to Adobe Digital Index, a report on growing trends in the gaming industry, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain generated $179 million on day one while Avengers: Age of Ultron generated $84 million on its day one release.
Mike Minotti of VentureBeats notes that what makes this report even more impressive is that The Phantom Pain had a budget of $80 million while Age of Ultron had a budget of $250 million. Overall, the game has sold over 3 million copies since its release with most of the sales coming from the PlayStaion 4 version.
Despite its success, many in the gaming media are puzzled over Konami’s decisions to end the production of all AAA titles and focusing only on mobile games.
The financial success of The Phantom Pain is part of a growing trend as video game titles are starting to out sell movies at the box office. Back in 2011, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 hit the $1 billion mark in 16 days. That record was beat in 2012 when Black Ops II hit the $1 billion mark in only 15 days. Yet that pales compared to Grand Theft Auto V hitting the same mark in three days while going on to generate over $2 billion in three months.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is the tenth game in the series and was universally praised as one of the best games for the Next-Gen consoles. Set nine years after the events of Ground Zeroes, Big Boss awakes from a coma and establishes a new mercenary army while seeking revenge against XOF.