Analyst: Battlefield 3 Surpasses 1.5M Pre-Orders In Total

A new report from Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia notes that preorders for the upcoming Battlefield 3 have now surpassed 1.5 million in total. This compares to earlier this month, when Electronic Arts revealed that the game had seen 1.25 million pre-orders altogether, already way ahead of its predecessor title Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Bhatia suggested that Battlefield 3 will indeed eventually sell through more copies than Bad Company 2, which has seen 9.5 million units sold to date. "Note that BF3 will include a map pack if the game is pre-ordered," said Bhatia. "This $15 to $20 value should be a big incentive for customers to pre-order BF3." He also noted that Battlefield 3's two-week head-start over competitor Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 should lead to a huge launch for the title, although "a natural slowdown in sales" will then be noticed once Modern Warfare 3 launches. Overall, the combined marketing costs for Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 combined may surpass $100 million by the end of this year, suggested Bhatia. Electronic Arts revealed earlier this week that the multiplayer beta for Battlefield 3 will be open to all gamers from September 29, 2011.