The latest blockbuster video game just made entertainment history on its opening weekend, its publisher said Tuesday.
Rockstar Games' "Red Dead Redemption 2" skyrocketed to a $725 million worldwide retail consumer sales during its first three days. The studio's parent company, Take-Two Interactive, said in a release that the game had achieved "the single-biggest opening weekend in the history of entertainment."
The number eclipses even the highest opening weekend in box office history: Disney's "Avengers: Infinity War" grossed more than $640 million in its first weekend on the big screen, according to data from Box Office Mojo.
Following the announcement, shares of Take-Two Interactive soared by 11 percent on Tuesday. Bank of America Merrill Lynch had previously reiterated its buy rating for the company's stock in August, predicting strong sales for "Red Dead Redemption 2."
"We continue to favor Red Dead for upside this holiday, while our longer-term thesis is unchanged: Take-Two has the biggest runway to benefit from digital shift, [microtransactions] shift, margin expansion and multiple expansion from streaming content deals," analyst Justin Post said in the summer note to clients.
According to Take-Two, "Red Dead Redemption 2" is the "second-highest grossing entertainment launch of all time," falling behind another Rockstar release, "Grand Theft Auto V," which achieved over $1 billion in retail sell-through during its first three days after being released on a Tuesday (which is why it failed to clinch the opening weekend title).
"Red Dead Redemption 2," described by Take-Two as "an epic tale of honor and loyalty set in the dying days of the outlaw age," has received critical acclaim from critics. According to the latest data from reviews aggregator site Metacritic, the game currently holds joint first position with "Grand Theft Auto V" in the list of highest scoring games by critics for both Sony's Playstation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One platforms.
— Tae Kim contributed to this report.
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