BF3 pre-orders on a par with Black Ops

By Fred Dutton Published 22 July, 2011

Analyst raises sales estimate.

Battlefield 3's pre-order numbers are "roughly comparable" with those of Call of Duty: Black Ops, according to industry analyst firm Cowen & Company.

As a result, the firm has decided to increase its first year sales estimate for DICE's FPS sequel from eight million to 11 million.

Black Ops has sold around 20 million copies in its first nine months on sale.

Battlefield 3 might be keeping up with Black Ops, but it seems it's a way off matching the retail buzz for Modern Warfare 3 - which it goes head-to-head with later this year.

Earlier this week UK vendor Game announced that this year's COD release is "already tracking significantly ahead of Call of Duty: Black Ops at the same time last year."

Picture of Fred.

About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (35) Latest comment 10 months ago

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

  • Gastrian #1 10 months ago

    Post deleted at 17:56:43 13-04-2012

  • PaulieWaulie #2 10 months ago

    Post deleted at 14:23:40 06-01-2012

  • sfp_noodle #3 10 months ago

    If the pre-orders are roughly the same, why are they predicting 11 million sales? Surely it should be 20 million if they are really are on par with Black Ops pre-orders? Also Black Ops had no competition last year - BF3 does in a much more established franchise in COD.

  • Stratix #4 10 months ago

    I think Noodle, you may have answered your own question.

  • riceNpea #5 10 months ago

    My girlfriend is roughly comparable to Kelly Brook. very roughly.

  • mickey2002 #6 10 months ago

    Will BF3 sell more then MW3.

    No

    lol /end of. Even if you dislike the CoD Games etc and are a BF fan boy if have any brains/know about the world of gaming. You'll know that MW3 will break all the records and will sell a lot more copys.

    @3 Since when EVER has their been 20 million pre-orders... gears of war 3 has broken the 360 preorder record of over one million.... you mean total sales yes. It'll be the same if BF3 touchs 11, you can bet MW3 is millions ahead still if BF3 does 11 MW3 will do 21.

    The mass market (aka n00bs) will all still stick with CoD more arcade/fast pace style so BF3 won't lure away CoD players. The millions that do buy it will be all us hardcore gamers, I'll buy both games thou MW3 will be my main game just like how my CoD games now I play more as thats what everyone else plays and other games like halo,homefront,gears which I'd rather play abit more of when get the chance since everyones always on CoD so thats where I am.

  • hazzatori #7 10 months ago

    Does anyone actually enjoy both games?

    I certainly do, I play both purely for on-line, COD suits me when I want a quick hour of on-line, where as BF gives me a more relaxed couple of hours play. ill buy both I never pre order and ill enjoy both, oh and the mute option is great in both...

  • P1GEONPOO #8 10 months ago

    I wonder how many people trade their copy of mw3 in for battlefield3?

  • Golgo #9 10 months ago

    Thank fuck for that! I hope lots of investors get rich on both sides!!!

  • Kazzahdrane #10 10 months ago

    @sfp_noodle:

    Presumably the analyst believes that roughly equal pre-order numbers won't roughly equal total sales. Makes sense, they probably believe that more casual gamers and word-of-mouth recommendations will help CoD sell more copies. Joe Public is used to seeing copies of the annual CoD lining shelves everywhere so probably doesn't see any point in pre-ordering.

  • metalangel #11 10 months ago

    @Gastrian: I wondered why there were only 9 people on the busiest Euro server for Section 8: Prejudice last night :(

  • evilrobot #12 10 months ago

    Post deleted at 22:12:53 08-05-2012

  • night735 #13 10 months ago

    On par? Ahead now I just pre ordered bf3 (-;

  • peeps #14 10 months ago

    Pre-ordered BF3 but not pre-ordering MW3, not because I wont buy it at or around launch, but because I'll wait for the 'supermarket wars' as others have mentioned. Plus if BF3 is amazing then I might skip MW3 all together, still got my reservations about BF3 though, I'm a bit worried we still haven't seen conquest gameplay and they're choosing to show off close quarters maps/rush gameplay first.

  • paulf #15 10 months ago

    I think the masses are ready for a change, if bf3 just churns out the same old same old and bf3 innovates then there could be a time for a change

    wonder if I could get a job at Cowen & Company with such insight ;)

  • IneptPercy #16 10 months ago

    Not played COD since the first modern warfare and never played battlefield before but this doe interest me looking at the PC version.

    With that I want a decent single player game, none of this online business.

  • night735 #17 10 months ago

    @peeps be prepared to not play mw2 then. Bf2 has alot to live up to and dice know that, this is NOT bad company, this is Battlefield! as us PC gamers know it. I have a good feeling this will give me the same if not better experience that bf2 did! I have faith in dice.....

  • Dizzy #18 10 months ago

    Seems very unlikely.

  • Subdominator #19 10 months ago

    As I play almost entirely singleplayer shooters I will just rent them both. Project 10 dollar my hairy ass.

  • WJF #20 10 months ago

    I'm getting both - pre-ordered BF3 a while back now, but I'm waiting until release day for COD. Why? Because, as someone else has mentioned, there will be a massive price war between retailers and supermarkets for that game. Not so much Battlefield - it doesn't have as strong a brand name for the mainstream supermarkets to start putting up a real fight for custom.

    Only a fool pre-orders COD (or someone that wants to pay £100 for a special edition pack with a toy gun. So basically the same thing.) There's no way Battlefield 3 will equal Black Ops sales, I'm afraid.

  • FireMonkey #21 10 months ago

    @Subdominator - "As I play almost entirely singleplayer shooters I will just rent them both. Project 10 dollar my hairy ass."

    I really hope they start offering us new copies of the games without the pass at $10 less. That would make the entry price for new games a much nicer level and if you like the game you can always purchase the pass at a later date.

    As it is, if second hand games drop $10 to accommodate for the fact that the on-line pass is missing and you don't care about on-line it actually makes a second hand purchase much more appealing.
    Edited by FireMonkey at 22/07/11 @ 20:29

  • TheFalc #22 10 months ago

    @riceNpea
    LMFAO :)

  • Lunatic4ever #23 10 months ago

    When they are on par...well, lets preorder BF 3 then people! its time to change the game!

  • Xardan #24 10 months ago

    American military shooter is popular shocker.

  • arcam #25 10 months ago

    That American military shooter is everything that's wrong about gaming, this American military shooter is everything that's right about gaming.

  • Tryhard #26 10 months ago

    11 million. You hear that EA get those servers humming in time.

  • Nephirion #27 10 months ago

    I cancelled my BF3 preorder on the basis that so many people will preorder at full retail price online that hopefully the supermaket stocks will shift there stock at a bargain price to get rid of them :p

  • ubergine #28 10 months ago

    With all the MW3-vs-BF3 fan-wars going on, they should come up with some kind of way for the two sides to meet and fight it out online. I'm no scientist but there's probably a pretty penny in it for anyone who comes up with a way.

  • Seehuusen #29 10 months ago

    Just wait till BF 3 hits steam then

  • lockload #30 10 months ago

    I wish eurogamer would sort out this spam posting problem im getting sick of it

    Anyway BF3 will sell well, so will MW3

    I want people to still play MW3 as that will keep all the asshats in that game and i can enjoy BF3
    Edited by lockload at 23/07/11 @ 14:41

  • Collymilad #31 10 months ago

    I enjoy both, but CoD gets old.

    The gameplay is too simple.

  • ForAllOFThis #32 10 months ago

    To the consumer/gamer, I think the most important thing is the amount of people who keep playing the game after the initial sale. I'm more interested in that. It's more likely MW3 will be traded in more than BF3, on a percentage basis. BF games keep my interest for longer because there is more in-game variety. It forces you to think and adapt. MW forces you to be quick and as a result you have one of two choices: Camp or Run & Gun. COD's approach is getting stale.

    I can't wait to be watching a distant hill from my spawn point in BF, and deciding how best to attack based on enemy vehicles/locations, then doing just that whilst communicating with my team-mates.

  • username84 #33 10 months ago

    I don't get why sfp_noodle has been negged so much for stating facts?

  • DAN.E.B #34 10 months ago

    I just hope the console versions of BF3 arent a million miles behind the PC footage they keep showing
    Ive preordered it for the 360 but after seeing the PC footage I think I might be a little dissapointed.

  • knightmt #35 10 months ago

    I bet someone is going to use the term franchise fatigue when MW3 comes out.