Watch Dogs has a monster first week — surpasses 4M copies in sales

Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs is having one of the best launches for a new property in the history of console gaming.

The publisher released the open-world hacking game last week, and the company revealed today that it has already sold more than 4 million copies. Watch Dogs has players running around Chicago with the capability to hack and control all kinds of public systems like cameras and stop lights. It is on sale now for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. Ubisoft did not break down the sales numbers on a platform-by-platform basis.

“With such strong sales momentum and positive feedback from gamers, Watch Dogs has positioned itself as the must-have game of the moment” Ubisoft marketing boss Tony Key said in a statement. While Ubisoft pays him to say stuff like that, it really seems like Watch Dogs is that kind of hit.

Last week, Ubisoft revealed that Watch Dogs sold more games in 24 hours than any Ubisoft game before it. That suggests gamers want new ideas, and it also suggests that Ubisoft’s marketing team knows what it’s doing.

“We’re really proud of this achievement,” said Key. “And we are confident that the Watch Dogs brand has a promising future.”

While Watch Dogs is a new franchise for Ubisoft, the company is known for turning its big hits into annualized releases. For the last several years, the publisher has had a new Assassin’s Creed and Just Dance for players looking to get a yearly fix. This release model is working for the company, and it should continue to work if it can keep introducing successful games like this.

Ubisoft has two other new properties in the works. The open-world racer The Crew is due out later this year, and the French company will debut an open-world online shooter called Tom Clancy’s The Division in 2015. While both (and Watch Dogs) are original franchises, all of them combine some of the open-world elements that Ubisoft developers have spent the last half decade polishing in Assassin’s Creed.