Mafia III sets 2K sales record despite review ‘anomalies’

Take Two has revealed that Mafia III has become the fastest selling game in publishing label 2K Games’ history.

The company shipped 4.5m units of the title in its first week. Eyes are now set on passing the total sales of 2K’s overall best-selling title, Borderlands, which stand at 10m units.

Note the distinction between 2K and Take Two. Grand Theft Auto V has just passed the 70m unit sales milestone, bringing total GTA series sales up to 250m units.

The news did not pass without a somewhat pointed comment from Take Two boss Strauss Zelnick, however, who questioned the game’s critical performance when speaking to investors.

In terms of the reviews and scores, sort of an odd anomaly, the scores are lower than we would have liked, but there are a lot of stellar reviews and I think the most prominent reviewers really loved it and recognized that what we are doing here from a story, art, character and excitement perspective is really unmatched in the marketplace,” he said, as transcribed by Seeking Alpha.

I think we and our competitors are seeing some anomalies in the review system, we take them as they are and we don’t argue with it. But I think we do have an enormous number of exceedingly favourable reviews. And most importantly, consumers love the title and they are buying it hand over fist. And that at the end of the day, that’s how we’re judged.”

The press were up in arms prior to release when it was confirmed that pre-release review copies would not be supplied. Whether that played a part in the game’s lukewarm reception – it currently has a 67 per cent score on Xbox One on Metacritic – could be debated forever.