‘Battlefield 3’ Could Outsell ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops’ in First Week; Ships 10 Million Copies

John Riccitello, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of EA Games, has announced that the company's newest first-person shooter (FPS) Battlefield 3 has shipped over ten million copies since its U.S. release on Tuesday. He added that sales figures have remained strong and numerous stores have already ordered new stocks.

This strongly suggests that the EA-made game could have outclassed Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops in its first week since releasing last year. Black Ops sold approximately 5.6 million copies on the opening day and has sold nearly 26 million since then, according to a Faster Times report.

Battlefield 3 has been a hit, despite having issues with the Origin service which has been down and hasn't allowed gamers to activate their copies of the game and all kinds of technical issues with the consoles' networks, such as Xbox Live. Gamers have also complained that the game's graphics are set to its lowest quality.

Nevertheless, the game is now looking forward to its primary competition - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 - which releases later this holiday season, according to a Faster Times report.

Battlefield 3 is powered by the Frostbite 2.0 game engine, which is projected to deliver more firepower for the game and sophisticated destruction, graphics and sound capabilities, compared to previous installments. In addition, EA has introduced a new character animation technology update, known as ANT. This technology made its mark in EA's popular FIFA series and has been adopted for Battlefield 3 to give the soldiers a more realistic look.

According to a previous report from Baird Equity Research analyst Colin Sebastian, first-person shooters currently account for about 16 per cent of all console video game sales. That number is only expected to increase. The FPS genre, at the moment, is one of the most happening sectors in the video gaming industry and generates nearly $60 billion.