EA: MOH "exceeding" US shop forecasts

By Robert Purchese Published 14 October, 2010

"Off to a great commercial start."

EA has trumpeted "great" day one sales for Medal of Honor in the US.

A press release claimed the war game was on track for "an outstanding holiday".

"Medal of Honor launched yesterday [Tuesday] with strong momentum and early internal indicators show that the game is off to a great commercial start," EA announced.

"In the US, retail response has been overwhelmingly positive with midnight launch events at nearly all GameStop locations nationwide and with major mass merchandising retail chains already exceeding their day one forecasts."

GameStop bigwig Bob McKenzie made the difficult prediction that Medal of Honor will be "one of the biggest videogame titles launched this year".

He's the same guy that said Call of Duty: Black Ops pre-orders were on course at GameStop to becoming the biggest ever.

Yesterday, EA defended the game in the face of "lukewarm" reviews which, some said, were linked TO a drop in share prices.

Medal of Honor launches here in Europe on Friday. Eurogamer's review was published on Tuesday.

The first 15 minutes of Medal of Honor.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • coolbritannia #1 2 years ago

    ah fuckoff Northface

  • 00.00.01 #2 2 years ago

    @coolbritannia
    Having just 'ignored' Northface (in previous topic on extreme CoD:BO sales expectations) your post is the first to see for me. But I know/guess some high-quality duckdown feather filled jackets were being offered...

  • brseg #3 2 years ago

    They seem to have gone into damage limitation mode since the start of the week. They assumed they had a 10/10 CoD beater, but suddenly realised they dont.

  • arcam #4 2 years ago

    OK, for people who don't know much about SEO - by using the same keywords the spammers are, you are helping them with their aims.

    Just neg the post and move on.

  • coolbritannia #5 2 years ago

    What's SEO?

  • Soton4084 #6 2 years ago

    I was considering preordering MOH, but after reading several reviews I'm glad I didn't. It's main weakness in my opinion is that it's trying too hard to be like Modern Warfare 2 and lacks any originality.

    Most Battlefield Bad Company 2 fans (such as myself) will simply wait for the Vietnam add on and avoid this because it gives the impression of being 'watered-down'.

    Most Call of Duty fans will wait for Black-Ops, as this doesn't differentiate itself enough from Modern Warfare 2

    I might pick it up when it drops in price, but only because I'd love to play MOH: Frontline in HD (The last good MOH game in my opinion)

    Edited by Soton4084 at 14/10/10 @ 11:11

  • arcam #7 2 years ago

    @coolbritannia

    Search Engine Optimisation.

    When putting links here, spammers don't really expect many people to click that link and buy a coat. Their real aim is to get Google to spider EG's page, see the talk about North Face, duckdown jackets etc. and associate those terms with the website that is being linked to. In theory, that means that when people search for those terms in Google, the spammer's website will appear higher in the search results.

  • RevanNL #8 2 years ago

    Frontline hasn't aged well. Played the Xbox version a couple of weeks ago and it's a pretty dull shooter now, I really loved it when it came out though.

    Anyway, was considering this but since I've got tons to play between now and January, I'll skip this one.

  • Dave52 #9 2 years ago

    This is good news. I'm looking forward to this release tomorrow...

  • FogHeart #10 2 years ago

    "Sir! The enemy has redeployed to another news item! They are no longer in the Tango Oscar Oscar*"

    "Dammit these guys are slippery. OK, I want these Hate Mortars reset to bombard the comments section here, here and here, while Charlie team flanks and uses their Anger Grenades to flush them out."

    "Yes sir!"

    "WELL WHAT DID I JUST TELL YOU SARGEANT! I DID NOT ASK YOU TO STAY SITTING DOWN! HERE'S A SHOUTY CLICHE TO MAKE YOU LOOK SCARED AND MAKE ME LOOK GRIZZLED TOUGH AND AUTHORITATIVE LIKE THE FOLKS BACK HOME WANT THEIR OFFICERS TO BE!"

    "Sir!"

    *It stands for Theatre of Operations, dumbass. Don't you know anything? Haven't you used the internet to memorize(sic) all the military jargon in these games and pretend you knew it all along yet?

  • coolbritannia #11 2 years ago

    Ah, I shall stop mentioning the names of these spammers products then and start promoting my band instead. I hear Bessemer have some great songs on their latest demo, lol

  • Darren #12 2 years ago

    Medal of Honor could have been awful and EA's big-budget advertising campaign plus the brand name alone would still have ensured it was a success.

    Looks decidedly mediocre from what I've seen of it though with little or nothing to separate it from the ten trillion other games of this type that have been released over the last five years. Exciting isn't a word that springs to mind when I see footage of this game but words such as "dull", "bland" and "uninspired" are! :p

  • albinac #13 2 years ago

    well if it sells well at least i know one thing, judgeging by the reviews i will be able to pick it up on the cheap when the disgruntled players realise that it is ok and hardly anyone is playing it online.

    few i just saved myself 30€.

  • metalangel #14 2 years ago

    So an unlovable game gets an equally sterile, by-the-numbers corporate thumbs up? Seriously, they might as well be selling elevator buttons or popsicle sticks for all the enthusiasm for the medium.

  • killyourtv #15 2 years ago

    obvious desperation is obvious

  • Freek #16 2 years ago

    EA gets to a hard point and holds out for CAS.
    Edited by Freek at 14/10/10 @ 12:19

  • makeamazing #17 2 years ago

    I have been liking the game, the only problem for me is that it seriously needed more polish... ability to get ahead of scripted events (and fall out of the world), scripts not triggering and the inability to complete a level so having to restart it all, see low res textures because you can see over a wall and not designing the game levels in such a way, where you think you can go back to an area but are stopped by an invisible wall for a low wall that you previously jumped over.

    So its not a bad attempt, but as a SP person, its just not good enough.. 64% ish i would say, not taking into account MP...

  • ubergine #18 2 years ago

    Given that I find CoD to be utterly boring (had a couple of goes at doing CoD4 single player but just couldn't care) I don't have much to add to a direct challenger for it, I just wish EA would get some games out in IPs or genres I actually want!

    How about a remake / revival of the System Shock games? Yeah I know, DEAD SPACE but hey, what about a reskinned rerelease of the first two games over XBLA?

    How about a new Burnout game?

    How about a new Ultima game, or likewise, remakes sold over XBLA?

    And why the hell has no one made a space combat sim this generation? Where the hell is Rogue Squadron or a Wing Commander reboot?

    I'm sure if I ran a quick search I could find heaps of IP EA owns that I'd rather see than another Call of Honour game.

  • Cronan #19 2 years ago

    @makeamazing What you describe sounds like a broken game, horrible.

  • Zaiz #20 2 years ago

    I suspect the new MoH titles are going to be low-budget and quick to build, and they aren't expecting huge sales. It is logical, considering the CoDded market.

  • makeamazing #21 2 years ago

    @Cronan, some of it is poor design and some of it maybe broken, but you know how bugs are, some people may not even had the "could not continue" issue... EG didnt obviously. Thats the problem with bugs, one person gets them another doesnt, i was ok with it, just iratated for 30 minutes trying to figure out how to get around it... as i said the main issue for me are the things they could have fixed quite easily (silly design issues) if they had the time to do it...

  • Darksjeik #22 2 years ago

    I have military experience and while I'm not going to pretend I was anywhere near Tear 1 operators, I can tell you MoH nails the "feel" much much better than either CoD4 or MW2.
    Those games are the Michael Bay view of war while MoH approaches reality much better. Some people may confuse that with "dull" or "generic" but to me it's far more immersive. Anyway, my 2 cents.

  • GitSomE_UK #23 2 years ago

    EA spinola machine goes into overload shocker!!!

  • abot #24 2 years ago

    I hear there are server issues in the states that are preventing folks from going online for MP but I am told the number of people online is VERY small for a major release. MOH sold a large amount of pre-orders so where is everybody. Why aren't they online.
    Edited by abot at 15/10/10 @ 06:57

  • makeamazing #25 2 years ago

    In the UK at least the game isnt out till tomorrow, guess its already been released in the USA on Tuesday? guess it depends on if Euro/USA MP users mix? Thats what i am guessing anyway.

  • gnrlstuart #26 2 years ago

    bought this game yesterday, almost finished the campaign, and apart from the meh hit detection which takes a while to get used to, it's a pretty solid game.
    now sure the game has its flaws, but its very entertaining, very real, alot more gritty than what we see in call of duty. the game looks beautiful bar the shitty explosions, but again, i point out minor flaws, nitpicking a solid game aiming for the top; this is understandable. what i cease to comprehend are people who are scolding the game for these futile quirks, instead of just getting on with them, and working with them until they are patched out. EA's shooter skyscraper is going to be tall considering this solid foundation; give it a go!