EA Says Battlefield 3’s Already Sold 5 Million Copies

UPDATED: As pointed out in the comments, Bad Company 2 eventually went on to sell 11 million units.

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I know numbers are usually boring, but given how much has been made about the competition between Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (mostly because of one company's chest pounding), there’s good reason to be paying attention.

Putting aside what anyone actually thought of Battlefield 3, Electronic Arts had ensured its latest shooter would do reasonably well, thanks to the game’s expansive, expensive and very loud marketing campaign. People also seem to really dig the game (at least the multiplayer), prompting about five million of them to pay for a copy, the publisher announced this afternoon.

These numbers are based on EA’s own “internal estimates,” and come not long after the company announced it had shipped 10 million copies of the game worldwide. Shipped and sold are crucially different, though that's not to say five million is anything to sneeze at.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 shipped on March 2010 and sold 2.3 million units right out of the gate. Based on numbers released a few months later, the game went on to sell more than five million units.

In today’s press release, EA said the Battlefield series has sold, in total, 50 million units.

Of course...

Impressive! I am liking the game a lot good for Dice.

Bad Company 2 has sold upwards of 10 million copies. I'm not sure where the "5 million" number came from.

umm Duh

Patrick, BC2 sold 12 million. EA released that info quite recently.
 
Edit: Sorry 11 million. Source: http://news.ea.com/portal/site/ea/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&ndmConfigId=1012492&newsId=20111027006649&newsLang=en

I'm actually very interested to see who wins in the BF3 vs MW3 sales race, a part of me wants EA to lose just because of how dumb they've been for creating this publicity-hungry feud in the first place. plus, by many accounts, they forgot to make a noteworthy game with which to "compete"

Awesome =) This is good news for DICE and I'm very happy for them ^_^

NICE!

@Metal_Mills said:

Patrick, BC2 sold 12 million. EA released that info quite recently.

Hmm, I'm surprised

Guys, he's not pointing out the total number oF BFBC2 copies, sold, merely making a comparison to project for BF3 sales. He stated that a few months after release it totaled 5 million. So based on that we could project that BF3 will sell 10 million in a few months time. If it were to parallel BFBC2.

I got it and I don't even like these kinds of games. Just want to play with friends online.

Guys Patrick is talking about the first week not the overall sales of Bad Company 2.

@DaBuddaDa said:

Bad Company 2 has sold upwards of 12 million copies. I'm not sure where the "5 million" number came from.

i don't know where you pulled 12 million from. that would make it one of the best sellers of all time which it isn't. Bad company 2 sold around 6-7 million total.

Having played part of the co-operative and multiplayer, this game deserves the sucess it is getting so far. My only issue (outside the occasional glitch/bug) is the option to have friends join you online is not clear as to when you are in the same lobby and matchmaking with friends can be problematic (maybe due to servers being full or matchmaking only looking to get one player rather than multiple into the same game).

Also I have yet to play in the same squad as a friend of mine from this site even though we have had at least 3 or 4 full matches online and joined at the same time.

Hey lil soldier you aint ready for war, C.O.D. too strong for y'all.

Too bad it's loaded with spyware. People have been complaining all over Amazon about how the PC version (Origin) is scanning all of their files and folders, including folders holding their tax returns. I think that's a complete invasion of privacy and some of them even posted screenshots in the comments.

Seriously, don't let Origin on your computer.

Metal_Mills I think he was talking about initial sales....not lifetime

@DaBuddaDa said:

Bad Company 2 has sold upwards of 12 million copies. I'm not sure where the "5 million" number came from.

i don't know where you pulled 12 million from. that would make it one of the best sellers of all time which it isn't. Bad company 2 sold around 6-7 million total.

Good stuff. An enjoyable campaign and fantastic multiplayer.

Cool. Now are they still going to continue to support Dead Space 2 (EA's best game of 2011) with DLC? Anyone? Bueller? Stupid Battlefield, stealing my DS2 resources.

That's cool because it's a good fucking game.

@BillyMethers said:

Too bad it's loaded with spyware. People have been complaining all over Amazon about how the PC version (Origin) is scanning all of their files and folders, including folders holding their tax returns. I think that's a complete invasion of privacy and some of them even posted screenshots in the comments.

Seriously, don't let Origin on your computer.

I go one step further - I don't let EA into my console either ;)

@blake_brown: MW3 will win easily. EASILY. There shouldn't be any doubt in anyone's mind!

5 million in the first week is impressive but Black Ops sold that many copies in 24 hours last year.

I'm impressed. While those are CoD numbers, no one ever expected it to out do MW2/BO. Good job on DICE, 5 mil is a solid number.

@Metal_Mills said:

Patrick, BC2 sold 12 million. EA released that info quite recently.

Edit: Sorry 11 million. Source: http://news.ea.com/portal/site/ea/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&ndmConfigId=1012492&newsId=20111027006649&newsLang=en

Thanks. Noted.

I can see why. The game is great. I can't remember having this much fun with a FPS since Battlefield 1942.

Great to hear Battlefield has gotten a lot more popular in recent times. Especially on consoles, I remember when I was the only who played Bad Company on my friends list.

I bought mine from Origin. Does EA calculate those in these numbers as well? Or just physical copies? I know a lot of people who bought it straight off of Origin. Anyway, I am having a blast with the game and always looking for more duders to roam the 'field with. Add me if you see this and wanna play some on the PC.

http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/user/Thrixon/

@Jimbo said:

Hey lil soldier you aint ready for war, C.O.D. too strong for y'all.

Haha, nice.

BF3...prepare to be shit on once MW3 is out.

Good, this game is fantastic on PC, best multiplayer I've played in quite some time.

Not surprised with all the marketing but the mutliplayer is good and worth playing.

EA should totally sell a multiplayer only Battlefield 3 for like $40 or something. I am interested to play it, but I'm not gonna spend $60 on it right now. 1943 is fun enough still to keep me going!

I'm liking the game as long as I know there is more on the horizon. I love the Caspian, Kharg and Firestorm maps. Canals is acceptable but I avoid it when possible. The other maps are garbage in my opinion. When the extra maps arrive in the back to Karland DLC I'm hoping to have a larger variety of maps available. As long as they keep on that track and add more maps with the full spectrum of weapons to use I'm good. If they add any more infantry focused maps I'll be PO'd.

@phish09 said:

Cool. Now are they still going to continue to support Dead Space 2 (EA's best game of 2011) with DLC? Anyone? Bueller? Stupid Battlefield, stealing my DS2 resources.

While I agree, I think you need to holler at Visceral Games for some DS2 DLC goodness.

Yay for DICE. Fuck EA in the ear, however... Hatorade marketing schemes make me want to puke. "Above and beyond the Call", my ass... its apples and oranges, folks.

@SparkEngineer /@Vegetable_Side_Dish

BF3 is noteworthy in that it's another entry into the Battlefield franchise, but from what I've seen there are plenty of detracting elements particularly with the console versions. The PC version of BF3 is absolutely amazing I'd imagine, but I'm coming to this as a console player. I loved the hell out of Bad Company 2, but it feels like they've taken a couple steps back with this one and I can't help but feel like I'm getting a severely watered down version of a better game.

With COD I know what I'm getting, also as a matter of taste I prefer the COD-style of first person gameplay to Battlefield. I like the faster pace, I like the ability to lone wolf it as opposed to having to depend on the numbskulls on my team.

The reason I said I wanted Battlefield to lose is because of how EA has purposefully started this flame war just to generate more publicity, when at the end of the day BF and COD are two very different first person shooter experiences and only vaguely comparable.

Good for DICE, but oh wait...the childish fanboys only know how to measure quality in terms of copies sold, so they are waiting for CoD to come out before talking shit....pathetic.

Good for them, its a great game

I'm surprised Bad Company sold so many! It was a little pathetic of EA to spark this whole head-to-head thing. What, do they want to become the next Activation, with a sh*t load of money and no long term IP's? Makes me very nervous about games like Mass Effect, Dead Space and even Mirrors Edge. Back off, let the games speak for themselves!

Woo!

@ptys said:

I'm surprised Bad Company sold so many! It was a little pathetic of EA to spark this whole head-to-head thing. What, do they want to become the next Activation, with a sh*t load of money and no long term IP's? Makes me very nervous about games like Mass Effect, Dead Space and even Mirrors Edge. Back off, let the games speak for themselves!

this

Here is the thing. CoD simply controls better, is smoother and feels less "camp-friendly". I feel like BF3 is for "noobs" who will be done with the MP when the next SP game comes out. That's what happened to BFBC and BFBC2. NOT to CoD. Just sayin...

That's really good to hear, my boyfriend is really enjoying it.

@Jimbo said:

Hey lil soldier you aint ready for war, C.O.D. too strong for y'all.

I prefer Battlefield but I can get down with some Jay Z.

Love it.

@phish09: You do realize that they are 2 completely different teams working on those 2 games right?