Battlefield 3 sells 11 million, new DLC announcement expected next week

EA had an earnings call earlier this week, which gave their executives a chance to shout about what a good year they've had. During the course of the call, chief financial officer Frank Gibeau mentions that Battlefield 3 has sold more than 11 million copies, boosting EA's market share in the "Western FPS market" by 11 points to 24%. The rest of that share probably still belongs to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

The release of more add-on packs like Back to Karkand could boost those numbers a bit more. The transcript of the call from Seeking Alpha has a response to a question from an investor about DLC plans. VP of investor relations Peter C. Ausnit answers by saying that we can expect "announcements from us on Battlefield actually as early as next week." It sounds like it'll be part of an ongoing series of releases, Ausnit suggests there will be a "constant flow of downloadable content" for Battlefield 3 this year.

DICE tend to be quite good at DLC. Their Vietnam expansion for Bad Company 2 was superb, and Back to Karkand was good, too. Will the next Battlefield 3 DLC consist of another cluster of maps and weapons, or will DICE add new co-op and single player missions? BF3's cliff-hanger conclusion is yet to be resolved.