Despite Issues, Battlefield 3 Ships 10 Million Copies First Week

Battlefield 3 may have even outsold Call of Duty: Black Ops on its opening week during its US release that started on Tuesday.

EA CEO John Riccitello has confirmed that Battlefield 3, the EA-backed shooter that may rival the Activision-backed Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in units, has shipped over ten million copies since its US release on Tuesday. While shipping isn’t exactly the same as copies sold, Riccitello has claimed during an EA conference call. that sell through of these copies is “strong,” and that many stores are already ordering new stock.

Keep in mind that this doesn’t factor in the European market, and what we’ve got on our hands is a shooter that may actually beat out Call of Duty: Black Ops, which sold 5.6 million copies on opening day and is estimated to have sold over 26 million during its lifetime.

Speaking to Metro, EA Co Peter Moore said the following of the release:

This is the biggest one-day shipment the company has ever done.’ It’s also already nearly more than Battlefield: Bad Company 2 sold in its entire lifetime, at 11 million, and more than double than last year’s would-be Call Of Duty killer Medal Of Honor.

All this, despite issues with Battlefield 3 on PC, with the Origin service being down and not allowing players to activate their copies of the game, as well as technical issues on consoles, particularly on Xbox Live. From what I’ve heard from the gaming community, the graphics are set to lowest optimal quality on consoles, which has frustrated a lot of gamers given console to PC preference among the vast majority.

Regardless, Battlefield 3 seems to have outsold expectations of most in the industry, and this can probably be attributed to a hyper aggressive marketing campaign by EA. Only the holiday season will truly tell if Battlefield 3 or Modern Warfare 3 comes out the more popular shooter, but with so many other games being released around that time, it’s an issue that is increasingly hard to care about.

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