As a part of their first quarter earnings call today, EA announced that three of their upcoming games are tracking significantly higher in terms of pre-orders than previous chapters in those franchises.

Those three games were:

• Madden NFL 13 – up 25% over pre-orders for Madden NFL 12
• Dead Space 3 – tracking “almost five times higher” than Dead Space 2
• Crysis 3 – “roughly three times” what pre-order numbers for Crysis 2 were

Those certainly have to be positive numbers for EA, especially the Dead Space 3 part. The addition of co-op to the game has been somewhat controversial among some fans of the series, but EA says those pre-order numbers show that the overall gaming community is eager for such features.

I have my opinions on the idea of adding co-op to Dead Space, but I think it best to keep them until I’ve actually played the game and know how things turn out. You, however, are free to voice your opinions in the comments below!