Launch sales of Assassin's Creed Origins were double that of previous game Syndicate, Ubisoft has revealed.

The detail, announced in a financial call to investors last night, sheds new light on the data released after Origins' first week on sale here in the UK - that the game's physical sales were roughly on par with Syndicate.

What changed? As we noted at the time, UK numbers company Chart-Track does not count digital downloads - and for Assassin's, these were very strong.

35 per cent of copies sold were digital downloads, Ubisoft confirmed last night. That's compared to just 15 per cent of Syndicate's sales being digital.

Assassin's Creed is "officially back", Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot commented.

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It's not the first time we've seen the rise in digital download sales shown off so starkly. Just last week, Destiny publisher Activision announced that over half of Destiny 2's console sales were digital downloads.

The past few years have seen the ratio of digital download sales versus physical copies accelerate - but also the rise of in-game sales, too. For the first time, Ubisoft announced it had earned more money through what it terms Player Recurring Investment ("PRI") than the digital sale of games themselves. PRI accounts for microtransactions, season pass sales, DLC, subscriptions and advertising.

Overall, Ubisoft's sales and profits were both up by a healthy margin, driven by the positive response to Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, and ongoing sales/post-launch revenues from Rainbow Six Siege, Ghost Recon Wildlands and For Honor.