Battlefield: A Sales History - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 06 June 2012 / 39,061 Views
Welcome to this week’s edition of “A Sales History.” This week we will be taking a look at the sales history of the Battlefield franchise. Last week we looked at sales history of Call of Duty and the week before that Mario Kart. If there is a particular franchise (no matter how obscure) you want to see the sales history for, requests are always welcome.
The Battlefield franchise is a first person shooter and is developed by EA Digital Illusions CE and published by Electronic Arts. Battlefield 1942 for the PC was the first game in the series which was released in September 2002. It was then followed by the release of Battlefield Vietnam. VGChartz does not have sales figures on these two games, but it does have figures on the most recent four main games.
Sales Overview
In the chart above, the Battlefield franchise has achieved lifetime to date sales of 23.76 million. The two Bad Company titles have sold a combined 9.13 million units. While the series has seen good sales it wasn’t until the most recent title Battlefield 3 that the series became a top seller. It has sold 13.26 million units in 31 weeks.
Looking at the bar graph above, it is easy to see that since Battlefield 2: Modern Combat that the series has grown steadily in each successive release. Sales have roughly doubled for each release. Battlefield: Bad Company outsold Battlefield 2: Modern Combat by 1.22 million units, only 0.15 million units away from doubling the sales. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 outsold Battlefield: Bad Company by 3.95 million units, which is more than double. Battlefield 3 outsold Battlefield: Bad Company 2 by 6.72 million units.
Weekly Sales
Looking at the weekly sales of the four Battlefield games for the Xbox 360, starting with Battlefield 2 shows how much bigger the series has become at release. Over their first year sales have increased from just 0.32 million units for Battlefield 2 to 1.08 million for Battlefield: Bad Company, to 2.74 million units for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3 in only 31 weeks has sold 5.93 million units.
First week sales are similar from just 58,384, up to 2.34 million. Battlefield 2 sold 58,384 units in its first week, Battlefield: Bad Company sold 323,567 units, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 sold 795,089 units, and Battlefield 3 sold 2.34 million units.
Looking at the weekly sales of the four Battlefield games for the PlayStation3, starting with Battlefield: Bad Company shows how much bigger the series has become at release. Over their first year sales have increased from 0.64 million for Battlefield: Bad Company, to 2.19 million units for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3 in only 31 weeks has sold 5.37 million units.
First week sales are similar from just 117,129, up to 1.72 million. Battlefield: Bad Company sold 117,129 units in its first week, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 sold 504,307 units, and Battlefield 3 sold 1.72 million units.
Predictions for Future Releases
There are currently no future Battlefield games announced at this time and with just DLC for Battlefield 3 shown at E3, another game won’t be out until 2013 at the earliest. There was a little more than 2 and a half years between Battlefield 2 and Battlefield: Bad Company, just under two years between Battlefield: Bad Company and Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and a year and a half between Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3. That would most likely put a release date of holiday 2013.
Predicting sales will be a little harder since there is a good chance Microsoft and / or Sony will be releasing their next generation consoles during the same time. The next game would then most likely be released for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, as well as the next generation consoles. For the next generation consoles it would most likely be a launch title which limits sales considerably. Sales would be maybe 200,000 first week for each console if that is the case. With the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 expected to be near the end of their life cycle, sales will be less than Battlefield 3, but should be higher than Battlefield: Bad Company 2.
Contact VGChartz at wdangelo@vgchartz.com
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I didn't realize there was such a gap between Bad Company 1 and 2. I knew BC2 sold a lot more but not that much. Glad to see the sales continue to increase. IMO, the best military FPS right now.
While I love these analyses in theory, I feel like they ultimately fail to reflect the total success of a series due to VGC's poor PC tracking ability.
Nonetheless, great article, and hopefully DICE can continue an upward trend for their franchise!
well lots of games missing obviously.
Though afaik BF 1942 and BF2 sold around 3-4m. Vietnam 2-3m.
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