After selling 1.5M copies in a day, a week later, 007 First Light hit 2.7M copies sold, and is "probably" at 3M copies sold now, according to IO Interactive chief executive officer Hakan Abrak at Summer Game Fest 2026, when speaking to GamesIndustry.Biz. The game is undoubtedly a hit, going beyond IO's expectations according to Abrak, but it still has a ways to go before it's the hit that IO needs it to be.
Last week, reports broke that 007 First Light cost IO Interactive near $200M to make, though according to Abrak, that's not an accurate representation of the core development costs. IO's expenses rose to that figure due to "marketing, future [performance-related] bonuses and all those things," Abrak said. "So it's less of an investment than that."
Abrak didn't seem to clarify further on where the development budget ended and where the marketing/post-launch bonus budget began, but he did confirm that the studio has yet to break even with its close to 3M copies sold. Though that's seemingly due more to the fact that making a game about James Bond comes with a few strings.
"We haven't completely recouped yet because there's a partnership as well, and royalties. But it's above all our dreams and expectations. It's going to be a massive, massive record for us and by all measures it's going to be a huge success."
As for what's happening with future Bond titles from IO Interactive, and whether IO will actually be behind them or if Amazon will choose a different route as the new guardians of the IP, that's something we likely won't have full clarification on for a while. But IO and Amazon are discussing what the future will look like.
According to Abrak, it is "very possible" that IO will be behind another Bond game in the future, but nothing's set in stone yet. "We're just, high level, talking about year one. I absolutely hope that players stick around and we do some awesome stuff year two as well."
Discussions between IO and Amazon are "ongoing," and for now, Abrak describes the two sides as "just talking about First Light and the live tail of it. We will soon sometime in the future be talking about future plans between Amazon and IOI."
Amazon's general manager of gaming, Jeff Gattis, told Polygon last week that "We did not make 007 First Light. We do have a stake in it because we now own the IP, but that IP acquisition happened after the First Light IO deal was already done. We didn't have the full rights to this First Light James Bond game, but sequels will be done by MGM and, theoretically, by Amazon Game Studios."
"We do see this continued integration of video and movies and video games, where that line is becoming much more blurry. We think that's a real opportunity for us to create IP that extends — or kind of expands upon — TV shows and movies. So there'll be a Tomb Raider TV show on Prime Video that'll go alongside the games. There's a lot of things we have in the works on new games that'll relate to Prime Video IP. This is where we've kind of made some bets on first-party content."
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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