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Battlefield 3 Sells More Than 3.5m Copies in First Week - News

by Miles Taven , posted on 31 October 2011 / 34,225 Views

A mere 5 weeks ago Epic and Gears of War 3 set the 2011 record for the highest debut of the year with over 3 million copies sold in its first week on sale. One week later and EA announced that Fifa Soccer 12 had toppled that with 3.2 million in its first week. Well, with Battlefield 3, they have reason to celebrate yet again.

Battlefield 3 has managed 3.5 million at retail, with a further 500k estimated for digital PC sales meaning it could pass 4 million in its first week, up noticeably over DICE's last effort, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, which managed around 1.5 million.

EA will have to be happy with 2nd and 3rd highest debuts this year, however, as Activision plan to release Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in a couple of weeks, a title which is expected to top a mammoth 12 million units in its first week.


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49 Comments
dark_gh0st_b0y (on 31 October 2011)

and MW3 to do 12m first week!? WoW, hardcore gaming has grown something like x3 since the PS2/Xbox/GC gen!!

  • +6
fedfed (on 31 October 2011)

Is any game ever sold 10mil in first week?

  • +6
Salnax fedfed (on 31 October 2011)

On a single platform? No. Including multiplat releases? Yes. Black Ops did it last year on just the HD consoles, plus some Wii and PC sales.

  • +6
kingofwale (on 31 October 2011)

is the break down of BF3 worldwide? I can understand if in US the xbox outsell it 2:1, but overall, I don't think the difference is as big.

  • +3
ZechsMerquise (on 31 October 2011)

To be fair to Gears of War 3 though, it sold over 3 million copies in a week on XBOX360 alone. Battlefield may have managed 3.5 at retail, but that was split over 3 platforms. They are good numbers, but they do need putting into perspective!

  • +3
TheWon ZechsMerquise (on 31 October 2011)

Good job Lighting Count! Actually right!

  • -2
dark_gh0st_b0y (on 31 October 2011)

good news!! It's nice to have something different being successful than CoD every single year, and EA did put a lot of effort into developing and promoting this project, so well done!

  • +3
markimsoad (on 31 October 2011)

Assassins Creed REVELATIONS wIll Sell 2 MILLIONS on FIRST WEEK! i believe!

  • +3
V4V3nd3tta92 (on 01 November 2011)

I read in the local paper today that Battlefield 3 has managed to sell over 5million copies in its first week, making it EA's fastest selling 1st week game in the companies history and perhaps the best selling game EA has ever published.

  • +2
DrDread (on 31 October 2011)

I hear that ford Focus outsold all ferraris combined. I guess Forf focus is a much better car =)

  • +2
Dr.Grass DrDread (on 01 November 2011)

Really poor example since a Focus is 15 times cheaper.

  • +2
VGKing (on 31 October 2011)

I knew that 10 million shipped number was completely bullshit by EA. There was no way it would sell that much its first week. I'm assuming that 10 million is supposed to last the rest of the year.

  • +2
ZechsMerquise VGKing (on 31 October 2011)

For sure, 10 million shipped sounded great, but they're a long way off fulfilling it. I expect sales to drop off sharply when MW3 comes out too.

  • +1
yo_john117 (on 31 October 2011)

Just a mammoth of a game!

  • +2
Mordred11 (on 31 October 2011)

Impressive indeed.

  • +2
Staude (on 31 October 2011)

Impressive. I didn't expect it to launch quite this big concidering previous battlefield titles and all the footshooting theres been lately.

  • +2
hunter_alien (on 31 October 2011)

Thats lower then I was expecting after the 10 million shipment news. Maybe the reviews hurt it :|

  • +2
crissindahouse hunter_alien (on 31 October 2011)

big scandal in germany so german sales will hurt a lot. even some lawyers deal with this atm. they scan your whole pc with origin (exactly like a spyware) and that's against german law. it only has one star at amazon germany after like 2k reviews.

  • +3
shanbcn (on 31 October 2011)

So it wont even come close to MW3. So they shipped 10 million and didnt even sold half of it in first week.

  • +2
Kai Master (on 03 November 2011)

amazing shipment or not, BF3 should sell less than FIFA12 in the end... and less than Mario & Sonic... and less than... I don't know why we are all so fascinated by first week sales... maybe because we all like records. And also short leg games are the ones hardcore gamers buy, prefer and play.

  • +1
Kai Master (on 03 November 2011)

GoW series never reach high sales, a 3M start is pretty good, but that's a hardcore/fanatic appealling series and 80% of sales are in the first weeks... FIFA12 started a little bit better (3.2M) and is a longer seller (12 months) and could reach sales of 16M+ (FIFA11 reached 16M!), that would be 2 to 3 times GoW's sales...
BF3 is a disappointment in term of sales to me, I really thoght it could almost equal that of MW3's... are critics bad ?

  • +1
Tammi (on 01 November 2011)

crazy...

  • +1
MARCUSDJACKSON (on 31 October 2011)

well isn't that nice? hey UC3 will do 800m first wk and MW3 will top that by 1 unit.

  • +1
reviniente MARCUSDJACKSON (on 31 October 2011)

I seriously doubt that Uncharted'll do 800 million and that MW3 will top that. Seriously.

  • -1
Xenostar (on 31 October 2011)

if they shipped 10m and only sold 3.5m, expect heavy discounting in the shops soon, thats alot of excess copies to have to store.

  • +1
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lordmandeep (on 31 October 2011)

Hmm I think MW3 will beat Black ops as it will sell more copies on its opening week. Plus compared to many hardcore games, COD games sell well all the way to Spring time.

  • +1
miqdadi (on 01 November 2011)

12M, Are U sure?, I know it will sell but 12M in 1 Week? Amazing

  • 0
VGKing (on 31 October 2011)

EA says they sold 5 million. I'm guessing this includes digital downloads?
Anyway I trust VgChartz a lot more than EA.

  • 0
codenametbw (on 31 October 2011)

I'm happy to hear this, cod is ova hyped if ask me and it was time for something new.
Go BF3!

  • 0
PlaystaionGamer (on 31 October 2011)

it annoys me that MW3 will sell 12mil first week while Uncharted will never reach that in a lifetime..

  • 0
sully1311 (on 31 October 2011)

EA estimates sell-through at 5 million: http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=619404

  • 0
NotStan (on 31 October 2011)

No way MW3 will top Blops sales, I don't think so anyway. Phenomenal sales for BF3 however.

  • -1
OmegaRugalv3 NotStan (on 31 October 2011)

It should top it's first week ... its already on pace to passing it. Lifetime sales ... don't know.

  • +4
nilli (on 01 November 2011)

Dice could double that if they knew how to make games run on consoles. Well that is what you get when your focus is PC.

  • -4
zingerman nilli (on 02 November 2011)

they focused BC and BC2 on consoles, did that make them best selling EA games ever? Take that.

  • 0
Salnax (on 31 October 2011)

Attention fans of downloadable only consoles! Less than 15% of this game's sales were from digital distribution.

  • -5
crissindahouse Salnax (on 31 October 2011)

lol makes no sense since you can't downlaooad it for console? you can only compare digita sales for pc and the normal sales and then you see that it has higer digital sales.

  • +1
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Kai Master pezus (on 03 November 2011)

FW = ?

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