NHL 12 Sets First Week Record for the Franchise

Video game publisher Electronic Arts has announced that NHL 12 has managed to sell more than 451,000 units at retail during its first week on sale, which represents a new sales record for the long running sports simulation franchise.

When compared to NHL 11, sales of the new game managed to go up by about 19 percent.

The new NHL video game has been launched on the PlayStation 3 from Sony and on the Xbox 360 from Microsoft, with the launch taking place on September 9 in Europe and 4 days later in North America.

The new release has pretty much the same basic structure as that seen in previous installments but, in a trend that has been pioneered by the NBA2K11 game from Take Two, allows players to guide legendary players like Wayne Gretzky and Gordie Howe over the icy playing field.

Some of the physical realism included in the latest FIFA series has also been included in NHL 12 and the Artificial Intelligence players are said to be better able to read the game and react on both the attack and the defense.

Electronic Arts is so pleased with how the NHL franchise is performing that it has also announced that it will be launching a new Facebook based spin-off called NHL Superstars.

The game will be free to play and will have a lot of social aspects and the developers are saying it allows players to “build and manage their ultimate team of professional hockey players.”

This will probably involve recruiting friends to man the positions and then creating tactics while going up against the teams assembled by other Facebook friends.

The game will be launched in early October.

Electronic Arts has been rather successful with its Facebook offerings so far, from The Sims Social and Dragon Age: Origins, but it's not yet clear whether hockey fans have the time to play both NHL 12 and Superstars.