FIFA 23 Sets Record Launch With Over 10.3 Million Players in First Week - News

by William D'Angelo , posted on 12 October 2022 / 2,844 Views

Electronic Arts has announced FIFA 23 had a record-breaking launch with over 10.3 million players in its first week. This is the biggest launch period in FIFA franchise history.

"The response from our fans has been nothing short of incredible, and we’re thrilled that our community is playing with their favourite players and teams across FIFA 23 in record numbers," said EA Sports FC SVP and GM Nick Wlodyka.

"With both the Men’s and Women’s World Cups, and exciting updates to our women’s club football content in game still yet to come, we’re just getting started on providing players with the most authentic and immersive experience yet."

FIFA 23 Sets Record Launch With Over 10.3 Million Players in First Week

FIFA 23 is available for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.

11 Comments

Azzanation (on 12 October 2022)

Same game, $70 Dollars.

Darwinianevolution (on 12 October 2022)

And this is why sports games will never get better.

Shatts Darwinianevolution (on 12 October 2022)

We can't win em all. There are ppl that enjoys this. If it works, don't fix it describes these type of games.

The Fury Darwinianevolution (on 12 October 2022)

What happens when there is no competition. Weirdly EA ditching FIFA might help this if FIFA find the right developer to make their own game.

Qwark The Fury (on 12 October 2022)

Microsoft could buy the license. Having Fifa support should do wonders in Europe. Though If at this moment is not painting the best picture of itself.

Ka-pi96 Qwark (on 16 October 2022)

They wouldn't really have FIFA support though. They'd have the option to name one of their games FIFA, that's it. They'd still have to make the game from scratch, acquire player, league and club licences, market it and try to convince people to actually buy it rather than EA's game.

Qwark Ka-pi96 (on 16 October 2022)

They have plenty of studios and even way more cash, so I don't see any real problems there. Having the actual FIFA name and branding van do a lot never underestimate brand power.

Ka-pi96 Qwark (on 16 October 2022)

Even with studios it would take them a few years at least to put together a game. And no amount of cash will help when most leagues/clubs are locked into exclusive contracts with EA (or Konami). People value real player/club names much more highly than they do the FIFA name. So I'd say the same to you, don't understimate brand power, in this case the brand power of football clubs.

EA know what they're doing with the football market. There's a reason they have like 90% of the market share there.

Plus Sony actually used to make their own football game too (This is Football) it was actually pretty fun IMO, but yeah they were beat by EA and left the market, as did everybody else bar Konami. It's not a market you can just show up in any make profit from, it'd take years of investment and improvement to catch up to EA. And if you're paying FIFA $300m per year (the amount they wanted from EA) just for the name alone then you're just making it much harder to be successful.

Edit: there's actually an example of this kind of thing playing out with the Championship Manager games. When the publisher/dev split the publisher (Eidos) kept the name, that's it. The dev (SI) kept the game engine/code. So basically the same as FIFA/EA here. The CM series consistently sold less before being cancelled. SI changed the name of their game to Football Manager and now have like 99% market share in football management games. People will follow the game they know and like, regardless of name changes.