Electronic Arts’ Need for Speed franchise has joined a very exclusive club by selling more than 100 million copies, making it the best selling racing game in the world.
Since the release of the first title in 1994, 14 Need for Speed titles have been released, the latest being Slightly Mad Studios’ Shift. The franchise joins a very elitist club as only a handful of other game series have sold this many copies, including The Sims, Mario, Pokemon and the Gameboy classic Tetris.
Players have completed over 279 billion virtual miles in Need for Speed, using 14 different game platforms. The number of sold copies even exceeds the number of sold passenger cars in the US since 1994. And just in case you´re wondering, the highest resolution cars in the initial Need for Speed consisted of just 70 polygons.
jdb
October 21st, 2009 at 23:49
100 millions of need for speed shit. OMG
Paul Kelly
October 21st, 2009 at 23:57
>>>Players have completed over 279 billion virtual miles in Need for Speed, using 14 different game platforms.<<<
That is the most preposterous claim in a release that is more over-the-top than the summit of Everest.
How the hell can EA measure the mileage that players have driven OFFLINE in the last 15 years? Utterly ridiculous.
Good for a laugh, though!
Montoya
October 21st, 2009 at 23:58
I would guess that is based on average playing time figures or something like that…
IWE
October 21st, 2009 at 23:59
All 14 titles together sold those 100 Million copies. I doubt shit have sold even close to amounts of Underground 1 or 2.
kill4f00d
October 22nd, 2009 at 00:14
I remember my friends and I had so many split screen races in Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit, ON MY PC! Good times.
orubasarot
October 22nd, 2009 at 00:30
loved 1, 2, 3, and if I remember correctly even 4 wasn’t bad, most of the time we would just ram eachother off the road or play bizarre not intended things like car tag or car hide and go seek
none of them have any business being on a sim site though
kill4f00d
October 22nd, 2009 at 00:44
Well, I tell you, if Shift released after Forza 3, not so many people would have bought it. It’s publicity bullcrap. These aren’t simulations anyway.
Siggs
October 22nd, 2009 at 01:05
That’s why shift is the only one that came close to being touted as a sim. I don’t think any of the others pretended to be, eh? :P
.
hypertek
October 22nd, 2009 at 01:17
the need for speed series was good for me til they went underground, then it became about stereotypical street racing car cultures that they do not know very well.
f0xx
October 22nd, 2009 at 01:28
I did wonder where Shift haters were? Here they are :D
Well, thats a respectable achievement, congrats for NFS and their up and down buisness.
Shift is certainly one of the best so far, though I also enjoyed the first ones.
cheers
carbonfibre
October 22nd, 2009 at 02:02
42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot, 35.9 percent of all people know that.
F1Racer
October 22nd, 2009 at 02:54
100 million is quite an achievement in the video games market when you take into account pirating etc. Good for them.
Clearly the NFS series isnt for sim racers but that is no reason to diss the titles.
Hot Pursuit and Porsche Unleashed were great in their time, as is Shift.
belzebutt
October 22nd, 2009 at 03:10
Which NFS game was it that had the interlaced graphics option on PC, back when SVGA was just taking off? That was whack.
stabiz
October 22nd, 2009 at 03:16
I dont think there was that much pirating back in 1994.
The Sims, Mario, Tetris and Pokemon, eh?
creatorex
October 22nd, 2009 at 07:43
Now it’s time for them to fix it, to improve it and to add addons with that all money they got we deserve some more attention.
:)
Tvensky
October 22nd, 2009 at 09:56
but it sucks… lol
kill4f00d
October 22nd, 2009 at 09:59
Seriously, EA, give SMS the time and money to fix Shift. You really do owe us.
Sensekhmet
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:14
Good luck in your life if you really think that.
To quote Mark Twain: The world doesn’t owe you anything, it was here first.
F1Racer
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:38
Why do the owe us ? What do they owe us exacty ?
That entitlement attitude. Nothing worse.
kill4f00d
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:55
Well
I supported EA in the past and they used some of my money and other peoples’ money to help make Shift. Many people besides me also spent $50 on Shift. We {SHOULD BE ENTITLED} to a decent bug free game. Have you been to the tech support forums for Shift? I think not. It’s terribly buggy on every platform.
http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/forums/show/260.page
ZombieJim
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:12
Not really. I get the impression capitalism probably wouldn’t work if all those hard working swindlers in every industry actually gave their customers what they paid for.
I currently have limited opinion on NFS: Shift. I have an ATI graphics card and as such I can’t get anything over 12fps. It does seem from the outside that it garners an astonishing level of hate for simply being branded a “need for speed” game. Pre-judging seems to be the order of the day.
IWE
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:29
Dunno about pre-judging.. Atleast I have tried every NFS wich is made for pc excluding Motor City online and I can say same as many others, first parts were the best ones.
Even 4th and fift part were still more or less entertaining games and even Underground was fun to play (actually more to tune the cars than drive), even it was far from anything realistic.
In latest parts handling have been crappier than before (even they are calling their latest game “sim”), these games have been more boring and there is anyway more good racing games to choose from than NFS.
f0xx
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:49
We do deserve a decent bug free ganme and they’re working on it.
http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/324363.page
F1Racer
October 22nd, 2009 at 13:36
Shift is working fine for me. It has no more or less bugs than any other games out there that receive patches later on down the line. What makes Shift so special ? Because its ‘your’ money as you put it ?
Man if you were that financially put out by it, maybe stick to torrents.
kill4f00d
October 22nd, 2009 at 15:40
What really, really makes Shift special is that there was so much money focused on hyping up the game with all of the trailers every week or so, and sometimes a few times a week. So, a lot of money was placed into marketing which could have been spent on development. Yes, I know Shift will eventually get a decent patch one day, but out of the box there should not be so many glitches across all platforms. Good for you if you haven’t had any problems with Shift so far. I like the Need for Speed series, especially the older ones, but the level of polish from years past has vanished just so EA can focus on marketing. So, in effect, my $50 and many other peoples’ $50 will be wasted on hyping up another title that won’t actually be all that amazing, instead of helping with development costs to make the title better and have better quality control.
F1Racer
October 22nd, 2009 at 16:00
Maybe they spent your $50 on Fifa 10. Or a re-order of pencils and pens.
Sommergemüse
October 22nd, 2009 at 16:16
Don’t know what you are talking Shift is the best NFS after NFS 4 …
Paul Kelly
October 22nd, 2009 at 17:17
NFS III: Hot Pursuit kicked ass!
Take care,
PK
Paul Kelly
October 22nd, 2009 at 17:18
EA owes you nothing. Get off the entitlement train.
Mr. A
October 22nd, 2009 at 17:19
+1
I loved that game!
f0xx
October 22nd, 2009 at 17:33
I rly dont understand the point of coming to each NFS Shift post just to whine.
Nowadays the majority of games need some patching.
Yes Shift has alot of bugs but its very playable…patience is a virtue… ^^
Jos
October 22nd, 2009 at 18:09
so, shift is playable, not on my high-end ATI 4890 1024 MB. driving with a decent-sized grid drops my framerate to 15-ish…
but yea a patch will come, in a month or 2 or 3
F1Racer
October 22nd, 2009 at 18:18
Yep gotta agree, Hot Pursuit was great. Having those cops really going at you with you escaping in exotic cars. I’m still amazed they kept up :)
Porsche Unleashed was amazing though. All the Porsches you could need and all with their own individual handling and sounds. It was a great marketing item for Porsche and the only time NFS did a single-make game.
Now we Shift with cutting edge graphics, amazing car models and an immense amount of dynamic fun. I never spend less than an hour on Shift once its fired up.
I`d like to see an NFS comparison review or video showing those 70 polygon cars from the first one to todays amazing cars in Shift. To see the progression like we have done with F1 sims would be cool.
JAGUAR1977
October 22nd, 2009 at 18:52
‘I rly dont understand the point of coming to each NFS Shift post just to whine.’
What else is there to talk about until rFactor 2?
Simbin doesn’t appear to be producing anything new, iRacing seems to have priced themselves out of the market and rFactor is stagnating until the sequal is released.
Seriously, take a look around, nothing is happening of note apart from GT5, Forza 3 and NFS Shift.
You would think the rFactor developers would take the initiative and release more details of the sequal, same for the mod makers who appear to be holding back for rFactor 2.
Mr. A
October 22nd, 2009 at 19:48
Did you guys know/remember that the first NFS game already had a cockpit view with working dials?
And I think NFS4 was the first NFS with 3d cockpits.
It’s funny how some game developers brag about having these features in their new games today.
Howie47
October 22nd, 2009 at 20:05
Almost all the greatest innovation in racing games has come from games made for the mass media. Hardcore Sim’s always seem to be a couple of generations behind. That is another reason they sell so much better then hardcore Sims. People like to try out the latest and greatest software innovation. Like the dynamic, PhysX enabled tires in “Shift”. That feel like your really driving on rubber instead of Limburger cheese.
Howie47
October 22nd, 2009 at 20:25
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlX3XZbNR_0
f0xx
October 22nd, 2009 at 20:30
Shift is playable with 15 cars maxed out in Nordschleife with a HD4870 but if I play in Tokyo the FPS drop like hell.
Next patch, or the one after XD will fix that…ATI 9.10 drivers are out btw ;)
JAGUAR 1977 Im giving a **** about GT 5 or Forza 3, if I want to play a “semi-sim” I play Shift :)
TuPP3
October 22nd, 2009 at 21:59
Same here, I still have the original box of that game in great shape :)
I loved those bet your car races :D
I was excpecting huge sells like this as I have seen around hour of NFS commercials on TV, shouting out loud IGN 9.0 review score… I wonder why they didn’t mention Gamespot score
Jos
October 22nd, 2009 at 22:05
quote from youtube user:
“OMG I’ve got the same card but performs much worser ,like when theres too many cars around it dips below 25fps ,what the hell ! Anyway I couldn’t see clearly your video but is it 1920X1200 AA4X everything highest vsync off?”
exactly the same problem as me and that vidcard is much faster then mine.
f0xx
October 23rd, 2009 at 00:09
Check other gamespot scores…Gamespot can sometimes be very harsh with the scores.
Check Need for Speed Pro Street score… 6.5 for PC and xbox and 7.0 for PS3 thats the same score they gave to Shift…well Shift has all the stuff of Pro Street plus cockpits, real tracks, better physics, better everything..
How competent gamespot is ^^
orubasarot
October 23rd, 2009 at 00:39
Here’s your chance to get a $1,000 Walmart Gift…
Congradulations! You’ve been selected to delete virtualr.net from your favorites since it just covers casual gaming shit from EA anyway. Toodles.
ForzaBarca88
October 23rd, 2009 at 06:46
Thats pretty amazing, considering Gran Turismo since 1997 has sold a little over half that amount……granted its not multiplatform. Still, GT games’ve all been good so far while some NFS titles have been south of awful.
Bye, we’ll miss you
kill4f00d
October 23rd, 2009 at 06:59
The very first in the series was “Road & Track Presents: The Need for Speed”. Here is a link to the demo with screenshots and video.
http://www.dosgamesarchive.com/download/the-need-for-speed/
To run it properly on a modern PC, you need an MS-Dos emulator named “DOSbox”.
DevonK
October 23rd, 2009 at 07:33
Very fond memories here of NFS: Porsche, it’s what got me into this stuff. In a fit of nostalgia I recently tried to get it running on Win XP with DirectX 9 – no go even in Win98 emulation mode.
Sensekhmet
October 23rd, 2009 at 10:09
Actually, I never found NFS: Porsche handling that good. It only had throttle on understeer and throttle off oversteer. True, you could spin out if you overcorrected but there was no need to, really: just add throttle. If I remember right, it was impossible to make a doughnut or get the car to oversteer simply by mashing the throttle.
jux
October 23rd, 2009 at 13:46
That’s completely false. Or perhaps you lump all sims by Crammond and Kaemmer to the “made for the mass media” group. They were the innovators and creators of the sim genre, and in their time the games were considered both innovative and up to date technologically (at least up to GP2 and NR2003). Of course they also sold millions of copies due to the big marketing budgets and official partnerships with F1 and NASCAR.
f0xx
October 23rd, 2009 at 13:58
OR playing it through a PSX emulator like ePSXe.
Tvensky
October 23rd, 2009 at 14:35
well Gran Turismo 1 (first one) is released in 1998 and it was created 5 years (just like new GT5)
tell me guys.. which of yours sim’s… on the PC is created in 1993 (when GT started to build) or at least 1998… don’t know any proper driving game in that period…
some of you are talking about we were first etc. stuff… i love PC sims.. but they are cheap as hell.. and totally not sims, just because they simulate all the little details and dials.. and tire wear and deformation and and… etc… they just dont simulate nothing.. its all just for fun.. on all platforms.. in the whole world.. there are no proper simulation racing! nothing can compare to the real deal proper racing….
all this virtual stuff is just for learning the right proper settings for cars, driving lines, tracks, learn about cars itself… but the driving isn’t as real… it just gives you some advantages..
cheers!
Tvensky
October 23rd, 2009 at 14:45
first ARCADE game Gran Trak 10, released by Atari in 1974.. but its not a proper racing game :) then first proper racing game was on the Namco game Pole Position in 1982… Pole Position is also the first game to be based on a real racing circuit. then next real nice driving was on CONSOLE :) In 1997, Gran Turismo was released for the PlayStation…..
Tvensky
October 23rd, 2009 at 14:47
and this Shift.. is well 12 years later after first sim.. and its not even a bit better :) lmao…
jux
October 23rd, 2009 at 14:48
Grand Prix 2 by Geoff Crammond/Microprose was released in 1995, Grand Prix Legends by David Kaemmer/Papyrus in 1998.
Arguing about whether any game is truly a simulator is useless. The same kind of software titles that people use at home for fun are used by professional racing teams for training. Of course they aren’t as real as the real thing. That’s why they are called simulations.
F1Racer
October 23rd, 2009 at 18:09
It is clear that you have no idea what the word ’simulation’ means.
It’s not about comparing it to the real deal.
Maybe look up the work ’simulation’ and understand it before making nonsense statements like these.
Howie47
October 23rd, 2009 at 20:06
Both those games were made to appeal to the mass market of the prospective racing series. They weren’t created to be hardcore simulators. Which proves my first intention. (games) that were geared for and targeted at mass appeal audiences have brought more Sim innovation, then hardcore Sim’s that are made for hardcore Simmers.
jux
October 23rd, 2009 at 20:25
Essentially, there aren’t even any hardcore sims available on the market then, except for netKar Pro.
Sensekhmet
October 24th, 2009 at 09:53
What… is… wrong… with… you…?
Sensekhmet
October 24th, 2009 at 09:53
NASCAR 2003 not a hardcore sim? Man, quit the weed.
DW
October 24th, 2009 at 13:01
NASCAR 2003 is of course a hardcore sim but it does have an arcade mode, the option of aids, and was a relatively mass market title reputed to have sold 400,000 copies which puts iRacings 10,000 subscribers into perspective.