A new infographic by Visual.ly does a good job comparing the success of the Call of Duty and Battlefield franchises. We use the term "comparing" here very loosely, as when the two are put side to side, there is no comparison when it comes to sales, despite EA's (recently toned down) rhetoric on the subject.
The timeline covers the sales and Metacritic ratings of the two franchises' multiple iterations over the near decade of their existence. It ends with EA's reported 5 million sales of Battlefield 3. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 launches tomorrow and, if recent history is any indication, it should be another Battlefield-obliterating sales juggernaut.
Why for BF1 did all it's expansions get individual sales stats but for CoD1 all of it's expansions were put into 1. When if you combine BF1 and it's expansions they sell more then CoD did with its.
@The Aquacharger Also why are sales numbers for BF2 PC release not shown when CoD2 shows it's PC sales and console sales while BF2 shows just console. When they're using sales information that's newer then 2008 as that's when CoD2 reached 2 million sold(with console release included) when BF2 hit over 2 million in 2006.
While the rest I can agree with, it's just the start of the timeline is very fudged.
@The Aquacharger This is a terribly inaccurate chart based on incomplete data, VGchartz has no data for online sales. Its also inconsistent, showing expansions for some games yet not others. Why are websites linking to this is beyond me.
One of my favorite things about that site is their criteria for determining sales. They give a list of things that should all be taken into consideration when "estimating sales data" such as: polling users to find out what they're playing/buying, studying resell prices, looking at sales and trends of similar games, etc.
For all top 50 items they use at least 3/5 methods, for the rest they need only use 1. So they could list sales of a game based solely on a user poll or based on the sales of a "similar game". You can only hope when they list top 50 items that at least 1-2 of the methods used include getting info direct from a retail partner or publisher, but that doesn't mean they'll get info from all retail outlets.
@troxnor Then there's still 1 expansion for CoD1(which is still put into CoD 1's sales total) and one spin off. The spin offs each had their game sales broken down away from the main game sales except there. It is still inflating the sales of CoD 1.
Both have come along way and both put out pretty solid games. I'm glad to see that both are in competition with each other to put out a better game. In the end.... the fans wins.
Now here's the question: Are you a Call of Duty fan or a Battlefield fan?(because apparently both isn't an option on the internet) However, I seriously hate that Call of Duty fans like to say that a lot of people hate on it to basically be hipsters. Any anti-CoD comments get a sarcastic defense saying the person dislikes it because it's cool to dislike it when in reality it's quite the opposite.
I remember finest hour online for ps2 that was sweet then they took the series and buried it six feet under. Basically in all Battlefield is the better war FPS but COD is the better close quarters one
BF2142 has no number and BF2142 Northern Strike isn't even listed?
...seems rather incomplete
Bad Company 1 vs. 2 is also interesting BC1 was a pure console title, BC2 also had the PC and the number more then doubled, and that without PC players knowing any of BC2's story?
It all comes down to wanting Call of Duty the same game every year like Madden(instead of uniform and player changes you get different maps and a short story) that's a twitch shooter and full of bugs and exploits. Or Battlefield with its massiveness and strategy.
Honestly I prefer the classic Call of Duty multiplayer (anything before 3) over the new glitchy hacked games.
So if you like the old days of Unreal, and Quake(which I do, but prefer strategy since I am older now) Call of Duty is your series. But if you like more thinking and strategy in you Military games go for Battlefield.
@IRaezer more thinking and strategy? all i ever saw in Battlefield was people running with shotguns and camping on the highest building with Assault Rifles.
'Versus' is such a strong word these days. It's a term that evokes endless flame wars in gaming, ever since Nintendo vs. Sega, all the way through 360 vs. PS3. Now BF3 vs. MW3 is the new topic amongst the interwebs, to which there is no goal in this pointless, digital war. Its almost as if BF and CoD are 2 completely opposing sides with nothing in common, despite the franchises falling in the same shooter genre. What if- hear me out- that you don't need to bash one game just because you like the other?
...and McDonalds is the world's largest food distributor. That doesnt make it taste any better. By the way, nice troll baiting article, Joystiq. Way to add fuel to the fire. I think anyone with half a brain knows that, aside from the fact that they are "military shooters", these 2 games are very different.
I always enjoyed the BF games more on PC, and now console, but I am not crazy enough to think they would do better than COD games. Like them or not, personal preference does not make either one crap - and COD gets more personal preference votes by the looks of their sales.
CoD blew up after 4:MW, then it set the pace for EA's next CoD titles. Everyone was expecting another CoD4. DICE, however, was just releasing at their own pace before CoD4. They're now just trying to keep up.
All this CoD vs BF results into one thing: better games (or FPS games in that manner).
As these game titles compete who's better, they're gonna innovate and push to the next level all that they influence, even other game devs are affected by this. All in all, what we all gamers should expect from them is this. Better games for our enjoyment.
Global warfare is raging and the battle will begin on November 8 when the cultural phenomenon Modern Warfare returns with the worldwide release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, the newest installment in Activision's #1 first person action series being developed by Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games.
