The executives over at Electronic Arts are probably ecstatic right now, as they have just released news that their hotly anticipated and critically successful shooter Battlefield 3 has shipped 12 million copies to retailers. At the time of the game's launch EA had shipped ten million copies to retailers, so it's safe to the say the title has been a financial success for the publishing giant.

Of course, fans don't just want to know about shipped numbers, they also want to know how many copies of Battlefield 3 have been sold. The numbers themselves are pretty astronomical. Of the 12 million shipped copies, Battlefield 3 has sold 8 million units -- with five million of those sales in the first week alone!

Unfortunately, EA did not provide a breakdown of how many copies were sold on which platform. Given just how gorgeous the PC version looks, it would be interesting to see if the game sold better than it's console counterparts, or if its sales were hindered by the Origin client requirement.

To keep the momentum going, Battlefield 3 players can expect the game's first DLC pack, "Back To Karkland" to launch sometime in the near future, with (presumably) more DLC to follow. PS3 owners also now have access to a free copy of Battlefield 1943, due to the fact that the bonus title was promised at E3 and then absent at the game's launch.

We at Game Rant gave both the console version and PC version of Battlefield 3 very positive reviews, and though there are a few discrepancies between the two games, as well as a few issues -- mostly the whole single player portion of the game -- Battlefield 3 is still probably one of the better shooters this year.

Have you bought Battlefield 3? If not, do you plan to in the future?

Battlefield 3 is available now for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.

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Source: CVG