Wow spacing release when you have proved your game to be good in previous iteration surely can be a good thing. This game is already list 11th on amazon for the year 2015 ahead of Halo which is at 17 for the year

Now this is some excellent news! :)

For companies "shipped" might just be a way of saying "sold" from their perspective.  Example:

Bethesda sells (ships) to Gamestop who sells (sold) to Me in physical

Bethesda sells (ships) to Me via the digital store

For Bethesda both are a sale but only one is a shipment.  Semantics, but probably how they worded it so they weren't miscontrued and didn't have people thinking 12 million phyisical copies have come off store shelves into consumer hands.

Dam looks like its gonna destroy Fallout 3's sales.

Isn't that better than blops 3???? If so holy shit good job Bethesda!!!

It's an outdated term but the industry still uses it because the meaning is understood industry wide.  You see that in a lot of business sectors.  It's often just used to say "copies sold by the publisher", which includes digitial distribution service numbers.

I am curious to know the breakdown in platform sales. After the Witcher 3 sales results, I'm expecting a huge % of those sales are on PS4.

I respectfully disagree.  The "record sales" were "in addition" to the 12 million shipped.  I've always thought "shipped" was in reference to shipped to retailers.  So from my standpoint, you can only "ship" one copy to, for example, Xbox Live.  I believe the "record sales" is what's bought by consumers digitally and physically while the 12 million was in reference to physical copies shipped to stores.

I agree, primarily because I believe GTA holds the record for shipped units with 1billion in sales after 3 days (800m day 1). I think it sold 10m day 1 to consumers.

I dunno man, it's really close.

Can tell how vast and diverse the industry is when games like Call of Duty and Fallout which I don't know a single person buys can sell in excess of 10 million copies. Well done to Bethesda.