NHL 12 breaks franchise records; Facebook game incoming

NHL 12 breaks records for EA's hockey franchise and EA announces a new free-to-play social game based on the license for Facebook.

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With pre-season hockey officially kicking off last night, all is right in the world again. According to EA Sports, its NHL series had "its biggest launch week in franchise history."

NHL 12 unit sales were up 19 percent across Europe and North America during its first week of release, netting "more than $27 million" at retail worldwide. The hockey sim launched for the Xbox and PS3 on September 9 in Europe and on September 13 in North America.

EA revealed that NHL 12 "sold through" more than 451,000 copies at retail worldwide thus far. Sold through references the company's sale of inventory, however, this does not directly translate to sales to consumers. "More than 6.9 million online connected game sessions" were recorded between September 13 and September 19, a record for the franchise, EA notes.

EA has also announced that the NHL franchise will be expanding to the social game scene with NHL Superstars, a free-to-play Facebook title. "NHL Superstars will bring an all-new NHL experience to millions of hockey fans by enabling players to build and manage their ultimate team of professional hockey players. With dynamic and accessible gameplay, fans can compete head-to-head in games against their Facebook friends from around the world."

NHL Superstars is set to launch in "early October."

Xav de Matos was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    September 20, 2011 4:30 PM

    Xav de Matos posted a new article, NHL 12 breaks franchise records; Facebook game incoming.

    NHL 12 breaks records for EA's hockey franchise and EA announces a new free-to-play social game based on the license for Facebook.

    • reply
      September 20, 2011 4:40 PM

      There is a pretty nasty glitch right now where your Be a Pro or EASHL character progress meter can get stuck between ratings...so like, 100% towards a B+ rating, but the game still registers you as a B under current rating.

      Found a workaround though, if you delete your online pass and re-download it, your stats will start updating again after your next game.

      • reply
        September 20, 2011 5:04 PM

        That's strange. I need to double check to see if that happened to me.

    • reply
      September 21, 2011 4:25 AM

      I didn't know Canada's population was already over 451,000. Thanks for the heads up man.

    • reply
      September 21, 2011 4:58 AM

      It's, once again, a great hockey game and still the best hockey game. Just like with 08, 09, 10 and 11, I'll be playing this most weekends with a bunch of friends. That being said, it's really not too different from 11. I feel dirty for paying a full price for a game that is practically the same game as last year. No matter how you look at it, the amount of development time that gets put into these games compared to other full priced games is ridiculously low. It's a differently tweaked version of the same game, hell, some of the things are worse than they were last year... I can't blame EA for taking easy money where there is easy money to be made, but I wish they'd skip a year or two and really rework the engine. They can talk about "real world physics" all they want, but what the game delivers right now is pretty god damn far from that. Then there's the fact that 90% of the announcer recordings are the same as last year. When you've been playing the game for so many years, it's kind of a "in your face, fool"-moment when you insert the 60EUR disc and for the first 10 minutes of gameplay the announcers say nothing new.

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        September 21, 2011 5:20 AM

        I skipped it this year. First time since I have an xbox360

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          September 21, 2011 5:28 AM

          Yeah it's probably a good year to do that. Goaltenders are better animated and seem to let in a larger variety of goal types (for example, in 11 shooting on the glove side was mostly a bad idea, now they actually go in sometimes), tackling is somewhat improved if you prefer realism over laying waste to anyone with anyone but that's really about it as far as significant improvements go if you ask me. On the bad side, penalties are now pretty much given with a throw of dice - more than half the penalties I've gotten have been completely ridiculous, whereas I think they had it down pretty well in 11.

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        September 21, 2011 7:10 AM

        I am with you 100%. I felt that this was going to be the case but I had to buy a game due to a bet with a friend. Don't get me wrong, the game is still awesome but loyal customers deserve a discount.

    • reply
      September 21, 2011 5:45 AM

      I wonder if it'll be as spammy as the sims social.

      Xav is building a new arena, click here to help!
      Xav needs a hockey stick, click here to send one!

      • reply
        September 21, 2011 6:11 AM

        If it's at all close to their Madden NFL Superstars offering, the spam can be non-existant if the user prevents it. There are plenty of opportunities to "share" crap with your friends, but all it takes it a click to "cancel" and nothing will ever show up.

      • reply
        September 21, 2011 8:59 AM

        BigBubba lost a tooth in a hockey fight, click here to help him find it!

        That actually might be kinda entertaining. :)

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      September 21, 2011 6:58 AM

      GAHHHHHHHH TOO MANY GAMES ALREADY DONT MAKE ME BUY THIS

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