The Need for Speed franchise has hit an impressive 100 million copies sold, a feat EA says only four other videogame brands have managed to accomplish. The game to push the series over the mark was the recently released NFS: Shift, of course.
To celebrate, EA has whipped up some lovely pictures to showcase a timeline of the games, plus a neat video that features a bunch of the series' accomplishments to date. Easily the best thing to come out of this success is the impressive list of facts we received. Here are the better ones:
Launched 15 blockbuster titles across more than 14 platforms
Released in 22 languages in over 60 countries
Players have raced over 279 billion miles of roads & race tracks
Generated over 17 trillion user-generated vehicle customizations
If Need for Speed boxes were laid out end-to-end, it would span 173,609 football fields
Football fields. Now there's a unit of measurement I can truly get behind.
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I still play most NFS games, but it's not like 3 and Hot Pursuit with high end cars anymore. Last that felt like a true NFS w/ cop chases was Most Wanted. I did really like the Undergrounds though, and would like another w/ fleshed out drag racing.
I don't believe there's any fixing being done on Shift, I get the feeling it's a bit of an opinion divider. Personally I thought it felt twitchy and difficult to control; like you were *constantly* fighting the car rather than the track. It's also been said it's overly rear-endy, causing way more drifts than would technically be anywhere near accurate.
As for the rest, most are decent, with the first version on 3DO being pretty extraordinary :)
got excited and pumped watching the video, went and played NFS:$hit (did not buy, thank god). now i ask, are these numbers they bragged about for real. every NFS game i ever played was like trash.including the latest one. so where did they get all these numbers??? i think they are all made up. screw you EA....
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Contest:
7:20 PM on 10.21.2009
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I enjoyed the old ones, like PC ones kinda 5-10 years ago.
Did they fix shift? or is it still shit?
As for the rest, most are decent, with the first version on 3DO being pretty extraordinary :)