Fallout: New Vegas Hits 5 Million Shipped

Bethesda's hailing Fallout: New Vegas' launch as a success, with 5 million units shipped to retail creating well over $300 million in sales, plus "a heavy volume" of digital sales. The company says it's "delighted" with the reception. "Despite the large launch quantities for this title, we have already received substantial re-orders from our retail partners, underscoring the tremendous popularity of this highly entertaining game," says Bethesda president Vlatko Andonov. Bethesda, owner of the Fallout IP, published the Obsidian Entertainment-developed Fallout: New Vegas, which released last month on multiple platforms. Alongside the strong numbers, however, the title's launch has seen some challenges. New Vegas has had a generally positive critical reception, but much of the media and community response to the title has reflected major dissatisfaction with the title's level of polish -- specifically the game is known to be plagued by a number of bugs. Bethesda has promised "as soon as possible" to release a patch for the game that will fix errors and repair bugs. The developer said late last week that it is "running final testing and certification on a comprehensive patch for all three platforms (PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3), so we’ll have something available in the coming weeks." An "incremental update" for PC is coming this week, and will fix save game corruption issues and smooth out performance for Nvidia graphics users as well as Havok physics-related problems. Fallout: New Vegas launched October 19 on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC in North America, October 21 in Australia and on October 22 in Europe. The game is set after the events of Bethesda's Fallout 3, staged in a future-dystopian Las Vegas as it begins to show slow signs of recovery from nuclear disaster.