Get out of the way Battlefield 3, EA has revealed that its upcoming StarWars themed MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic, has broken its previous record for pre-order sales. This is an impressive feat, not only for a PC exclusive game, but also for a game which is currently available on pre-order exclusively via EA’s own online distribution network, Origin.
The announcement was made during the publisher’s recent quarterly financial briefing, at which it announced that it is now the “#1 publisher in Western Markets”. According to EA, it commanded a 16% market share for the quarter ending 30 June. Instrumental in achieving this success were big sellers such as Portal 2, Dead Space 2 and Dragon Age 2, all of which sold over two million copies each. Crysis 2 was EA’s biggest seller over the quarter, moving over 3 million copies.
EA revealed additional stats regarding older titles, announcing that Battlefield: Bad Company 2 has gone on to sell over nine million units so far, while FIFA 11 has moved 15 million.
Bad Company 2 may have sold well, but EA is expecting Battlefield 3 to blow it away in terms of sales, claiming that pre-orders on BF3 are “more than 10x” what they were on Bad Company 2.
EA would not reveal pre-order numbers for any of games currently lined up, but confirmed that Battlefield 3 is “tracking well on pre-orders”, and that Star Wars: The Old Republic has broken EA’s previous record for pre-orders, which is highly surprising given that it is only being released on PC.
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