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A record-breaking number of gamers played the beta for Blizzard’s upcoming release Overwatch.
Over9.7m consumers tried the team shooter, making it Blizzard’s biggest ever beta. Not only that – 4.9bn minutes of gameplay (more than 81m hours) were played.
Comparing this to the performance of other betas – over nine million people played Star Wars Battlefront’s, 6.4m played that of The Division while Battlefield Hardline’s beta saw seven million gamers.
The Overwatch beta launched for some players on May 3rd, before opening for everyone on May 5th and closing on May 10th.
Overwatch launches on PS4, Xbox One and PC on May 24th.
"We’re thrilled that such an incredible number of players from around the globe got a chance to check out Overwatch during the Open Beta," said Blizzard co-founder and COO Mike Morhaime.
Our mission was to make sure as many console and PC gamers as possible could experience the full game ahead of its launch—the response was overwhelming, and we hope that everyone had a blast."
The world needed heroes, and an incredible 9.7 MILLION of you answered the call. Here's to our next adventure! pic.twitter.com/YIusT0rCUa
— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) May 12, 2016
