EA Says It Sold 890,000 Copies of Mass Effect 3 on First Day

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BioWare

BioWare released Mass Effect 3 on Tuesday to some pretty stellar reviews, including some from critics who weren’t huge fans of the first two games. Apparently people were buying the hype because the game sold 890,000 units in a single day — and that’s just in North America.

Those are pretty good numbers, although nowhere near the 6.5 million copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 that Activision sold in one day or the 3.4 million copies of Skyrim that Bethesda Softworks sold in two.

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EA, which owns BioWare, also announced that it has shipped 3.5 million copies of Mass Effect 3 worldwide over the last week. It’s worth noting here that the number “shipped” usually refers to the number of units shipped to retailers, not the total number of units bought by consumers.

Overall, John S. Riccitiello, CEO of EA, seemed somewhat, kind of happy about the numbers while talking at the Wedbush Securities Technology, Media and Telecommunications Conference yesterday:

In North America first day, so the first 24-hour period, we sold through 890,000 copies by our estimate. That’s a 24-hour period in one geography. So that’s a good start. It isn’t frankly – we sort of anticipated it would do well, so it’s doing really well. So we’re happy. It’s not a negative bit of news. It’s a positive bit of news.

Who are you trying to convince, John; us or yourself?

No word yet on how many people spent $10 on From Ashes, the downloadable content that irked some gamers due to the fact it was released on the same day as Mass Effect 3, making it seem more like a cynical profit-making move instead of a way to extend the story of the game for hardcore fans.

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