14 DAY TRIAL // Publisher Electronic Arts has announced that FIFA 11 has managed to sell 2.68 million copies at retail on the European and North American markets in its first week on sales, making it the fastest selling sports video game ever launched.
The company has also put out the news that FIFA 11 Ultimate Team, an connected game mode, will be free to play on both the Xbox 360 and on the PlayStation 3 starting with the month of November.
FIFA is one of the biggest franchises created by EA Sports, alongside Madden, and the division really needed a big hit to compensate for the fact that NBA Elite 11 has been delayed to next year, with some analysts suggesting that the move could cost the company 60 million dollars.
Peter Moore, who is the president of EA Sports, has stated, “We’re thrilled at how fans embraced FIFA 11 last weekend, and we are excited to be able to offer one of our most popular game modes – FIFA 11 Ultimate Team – for free this November.”
He added, “This is a landmark achievement for EA SPORTS – we’ve shattered sales records at retail, critics are praising FIFA 11 as being one of the most authentic and innovative titles ever, and fans are connecting and competing with other gamers around the world and have logged a record number of online connected game sessions.”
The sales numbers for FIFA 11 come from internal Electronic Arts estimates and the company believes that it has seen an increase in sales of about 29 percent.
Electronic Arts also says that on October 1 and 2 fans of the series participated in the busiest period for online gaming in the history of the franchise, with more than 11.3 million sessions of FIFA registered.
The main selling point of FIFA 11 is the Personality+ system, which aims to make players on the pitch behave like their real life counterparts.