BIOWARE’S MASS EFFECT 2 HAILED AS 1st BLOCKBUSTER OF 2010

Game Earns Rave Reviews, Sells 2Million Units in Week One

Guildford, UK (January 29, 2010) – Forty perfect scores. Two million units. One pop culture phenomenon. BioWare™, a division of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS), announced today that Mass Effect™ 2 has sold-in over two million units worldwide in its first week of release*. Lauded for its intense shooter gameplay and deep, hand-crafted story, Mass Effect 2 has earned an average review score of 96** — making it the second highest rated game of all time on the Xbox 360 platform***. Mass Effect 2 has earned 40 perfect scores, amassed over 30 editor’s choice awards and is donning the front cover of 20 magazines worldwide. On launch day, the term “Mass Effect” was in the top 10 trending topics on Twitter and most searched on Google News. MSNBC.com said, “Mass Effect will go down as one of the most influential video game series of all-time.”

Dr. Ray Muzyka, co-founder, BioWare and Group General Manager of the RPG/MMO Group of EA said, “Mass Effect 2 is poised to be one of the biggest games of 2010. We could not be more proud of the game’s universal acclaim and early commercial success.”

Mass Effect 2 launched this week hot on the heels of BioWare’s Dragon Age: Origins, the studio’s dark fantasy RPG which shipped in fall 2009. Dragon Age: Origins has earned an average review score of 91****, making it the highest rated original intellectual property from EA in the last year. Mass Effect 2 follows in BioWare’s tradition of delivering excellence on every front: gameplay, story, character development and visuals. Mass Effect 2 is an epic shooter/RPG set in a vast universe filled with dangerous alien life and mysterious, uncharted planets. In Mass Effect 2, players step into the role of the heroic Commander Shepard, leading a crew of some of the most dangerous operatives from across the galaxy on a mission so challenging that it’s potentially suicidal. Featuring intense action, a rich storyline, space exploration and engaging character interaction, Mass Effect 2 delivers an unparalleled gaming experience.

Mass Effect 2 is available for the Xbox 360 and the PC and is 15 by the BBFC. For more information, follow the development team on Twitter at http://twitter.com/masseffect2 or visit the game’s official UK website at http://getmasseffect.ea.com.

*According to internal EA data.
**On Xbox 360 platform according to Metacritic.com.
***Mass Effect 2 is tied for second place according to Metacritic.com.
****On PC according to Metacritic.com.

Great news.

But i wonder, does this mean the PC version actually outsold the 360 version?

WTF?! 2M in week one, thats incredible for a RPG game. I presume about half of that is on the Xbox 360? Which is again pretty incredible. Most games can't do that when they release on both the Xbox 360 and PS3 at once.

Who knows, there are far more PCs than x360s so I suppose it's possible, but I think x360 sales will be higher.

We need the sales split between the two platforms.

I will be picking up the PC version soon and am looking forward to it.

Awesome sales for awesome game. Though I predict that this will be extremely frontloaded because this is direct sequel to first one (and very story driven game) and first sold probably something like 3-4milj when you count PC release as well.

Good point. I forgot about that excuse

Sold to retailers correct?

I want also remind everyone that these are shipped numbers not sold. Remember how Fallout 3 sold over 4.5milj first week.

Not suprising, they made the perfect action RPg, the perfect hybrid between a shooter and a RPG. Some say the RPG elements are hardly there but I'm playing it right now and I wonder all shooter fans will like it, because between all the talking, upgrading, buying, side questing, scanning it takes up 50% of the gameplay. Luckily the combat sections are build in such a way that they are sperate of the other elements so you can rush towards them if your a shooterfan. So it really is the perfect hybrid and it deserves thes esales and then some.

It could mean that the 360 version sold more than VGChartz has estimated