Clearly Destiny is not destined to sell 30 million. I don't think 20 million is possible at this point. If we look at what some people thought Destiny would kill (CoD) and see what the last mega successful version produced we see that CoD: Black Ops 2 launched (PS360PC) with 12 million and ended up on 27 million. That means launch week was 44% of lifetime sales.

In theory as a new IP launch week sales should be a lower proportion of lifetime sales than a highly anticipated game like CoD. But Destiny still managed very high week 1 sales for what it is. So I'm going to preduct that Destiuny week 1 represents 40% of it's lifetime potential. But given the fairly low reviews and the word of mouth being mixed (some love it, a lot of people don't rate it as a total package). That might make it a more front loaded game so launch seek could get to as high as 50% lifetime. But I'm going to be optimistic and say 40%.

Launch week sales for Destiny was 4.8 million. So I think the lifetime sales for Destiny will be around 12 million. That's damned good, but no CoD killer. However it is a good base to build from IF Bungie can deliver a more universally acclaimed game next time 'round.

Since Destiny is a 10 years plan thing, maybe the franchise will get to that number eventually. But for the first game?

I'll reiterate Kowen's question: Who said that?

Well more people expected it to be a great game so that is where the high expectations came from....

It might've gotten to 20 with better reviews. But the first impression is pretty much destroyed now until they release a second game.

No one really expected it to be sub 80.

I believe I said it would sell 68.1 Million on PS4 alone.

To be fair we also expected Destiny to be good =P

30 million for a new IP? Seriously?

Quality isnt bound to quantity. Plenty of mediocre and bad games that sell far better than they should,  especially  on mobile

Actually, many really did. Based on a break-even analysis on the $500 million cost to develop and market the title + Activision's target ROI for most projects.

Based on "Anatomy of a Retail Game Costs", Activision would collect a royalty of about $15 (maybe $20 since it's a high profile title) once MS, Sony take their platform royalty, retailers make some money, and the costs of distribution are covered.

So assume a $20 royalty * 30 million copies = $600 million. A gross profit of about 20% which would be considered acceptable.

Granted, there's additional ways they'll make money on the title via DLC. But that's how many came up with a 30 million estimate.

Just breaking even on Destiny would be a bad outcome for Activision financially

I know but people expected a huge start (and it did) and the quality would keep on making the game sell, the reality is that you can buy the game new for 65 euro..http://www.gamemania.be/Default.aspx?tabid=87&gmgame=28465 or like in so many countries and regions just go to a used/second hand store and find the game for like 39 euro or less http://www.cashconverters.be/fr/catalog-detail?pid=011-234304 finding a  game on PS4/Xone 3-4 weeks after it is release for 39.99 euro is very Rare..