The Medal of Honor franchise has been dropped for now as a result of poor sales, in part due to the poor reception that Medal of Honor: Warfighter got. In an investor call EA COO Peter Moore said that critics unfarily panned the game. However, he added, “This one is behind us now. We are taking Medal of Honor out of the rotation and have a plan to bring year-over-year continuity to our shooter offerings." EA Labels president Frank Gibeau explained, “We're in a hit-driven business where it's about what you can build in a certain period of time and really deliver for the marketplace, and frankly we missed on Medal of Honor. And we take responsibility for that."
Medal of Honor’s loss is Battlefield’s gain however, as the series looks set to become a yearly release. Battlefield 3 performed well, and resonated well with both critics and fans. Battlefield 3 Premium has notched up over $108 million in sales and has approximately 2.9 million subscribers to date.
Another series that is unlikely to be shelved anytime soon is FIFA. Over 12 million units of FIFA 13 were sold by the end of last year, a 23% increase over FIFA 12. The franchise’s digital revenues rose 98% and surpassed the $100 million milestone.
Elsewhere, EA is expecting good things from the upcoming releases of Dead Space 3, as the demo has been downloaded more than Dead Space 2’s demo, and Crysis 3, as pre-orders are up 40% over Crysis 2 pre-orders. Finally, EA is quietly confident about the likes of Sim City and Real Racing 3. Those looking forward to Fuse will have to wait a little while longer as the release of the co-op shooter has been pushed back to the first fiscal quarter of 2014, or sometime between April and June of this year in non-fiscal-year terms.