The event took place on Friday in London, with EA actually taking home three awards, while Activision went home empty handed with none. EA won BAFTA awards for Audio Achievement and Best Online Multiplayer, but the real prize for EA came when they picked up the only award which is voted by the public, with Battlefield 3 beating Modern Warfare 3 to the punch.

How did the company react to the win? EA’s Colin Blackwood spoke to VG247 after picking up the award and you may find this quote particularly interesting – “Obviously, Call of Duty has defined the size of the shooter market, so to get one over on them? That’s great.”

He went on to say that they also beat the likes of Batman: Arkham City and Skyrim, but at this time the only thing that matters to EA is that the game is number one in the eyes of the public – from a UK consumer point of view anyway. That leads us on to our next point, how will Battlefield 3 gamers in the US react to the news? They have just been treated to the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards of course, in which Modern Warfare 3 beat Battlefield 3 in the Best Shooter category.

There was some criticism of the VGA awards in general for perhaps focusing on the celebrity side of things rather than the actual games and their respective development studios, so will EA take further pleasure from the fact that they have won a BAFTA award over Modern Warfare 3 in a ceremony which is arguably more prestigious?

Let us know if you think the award is well deserved, or if you think Activision should have won instead.

In the UK total sales of software, hardware, and accessories totaled £2.52 billion last year, which according to CVG is down thirteen percent compared to 2010. Sales of boxed games accounted for £1.42 billion, which was a drop by seven percent compared to the previous year.

According to UKIE who provide the data this was better than earlier forecasts for the year, which saw consumer spending on leisure activities and goods, come under strain. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was unsurprisingly the biggest selling game of 2011.

Console hardware sales revenue totaled £646 million during 2011 with gaming accessories accounting for £453 million in revenue last year, which is a fall by seventeen percent. Motion control devices such as the Microsoft Kinect made up around eleven percent of total unit sales, and 27 percent of revenue.

Despite the falls across the board there were still some great achievements according to UKIE chairman Andy Payne.MW3 hit the game charts in week 45 and generated £83 million in revenue in the first five days, selling two million units.

2011 also saw the release of the Nintendo 3DS that despite getting off to a slow start began selling well following a price cut. There were also some other big game releases such as Battlefield 3 and Skyrim, which would have helped boost revenues.

This year we will see the launch of the PS Vita and Nintendo’s Wii U along with some big game releases such as GTA 5, and Halo 4. These figures compare to the Japanese market that saw a fall of eight percent with Mario Kart 7 and the 3DS topping the sales charts.

Are you surprised that revenue dropped so much considering the games that were released last year?

By now gaming fans will be used to the annual FIFA title being released, and this year’s offering offered quite an improvement over its predecessor. The game has proved popular as it finished 2011 by topping the UK All Format Gaming Chart.

The yearly soccer game saw off some stiff competition from the likes of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which finished at number 2 for the year. Finishing off the top three was rival FPS Battlefield 3 that was also an Electronic Arts title.

While Skyrim managed to bag the number one spot at Christmas thanks to some big discounts by retailers, it finished the year sitting at number eight. Just outside the top three was Just dance 3 with Assassin’s Creed: Revelations one place lower.

Another EA title Need For Speed: The Run finished the year at number seven in the chart one place behind Saints Row: The Third. 2012 promises to be another great year for games with the likes of GTA 5 and Halo 4 on route. Many have predicted GTA 5 to define gaming this year, with some even suggesting it will outsell this year’s Call of Duty title.

What was your favorite game of 2011?

An article over at ComputerandVideogames.com is reporting that Infinity Ward has announced the first MW3 DLC will become available on January 24, 2012. The DLC will be available to those who are Call of Duty Elite members on Xbox Live first.

Robert Bowling, Infinity Ward’s creative strategist talked about the news via a Call of Duty Elite video. He revealed that Modern Warfare 3 DLC will be more varied than previous offerings, and also announced that Infinity Ward, Raven, and Sledgehammer are all working together on updates for the title.

He said that the way they are going to provide downloadable content this time will be “unlike we’ve ever done before”. This will translate into how gamers will get it and added “We’re doing more than just maps. We’re going to do Spec Ops missions and a variety of things that players have never seen before”.

Bowling said that having three developers working on the content was a great thing, and promises to provide gamers with something special. There has been mystery and rumors surrounding when gamers will get treated to DLC content for MW3, and now you know when it all kicks off. Currently there are no dates for other platforms to begin receiving the first DLC content from Infinity Ward.

Are you looking forward to the first batch of DLC content for MW3?

According to an article over at MP1ST the new patch has been released for all consoles to download. This was recently promised by Infinity Ward’s Robert Bowling, and the Thanksgiving patch is expected to fix problems with lag, rank loss problems, and matchmaking.

The size of the download is 4MB for the Xbox 360 and 21MB for the PlayStation 3, and it should become available as soon as you log into the multiplayer section of the title. Currently there are no official notes to accompany the latest update, but it has been promised that Bowling will reveal what the already released patches have sorted at a later date.

Currently feedback has suggested that some of the issues have been fixed but not for everyone. Some have said the lag is now gone but others are saying it still exists. While the update is still being pushed out across the world it won’t become clearer until more users have used the game after updating.

Have you downloaded the update? Have you noticed any issues?

An article over at Gaming Examiner is reporting that some users of the Xbox 360 with the game have taken to the Xbox Forums complaining of problems. The issue surrounds owners being presented with the “unable to read disc” message when trying to play the game.

The topic is beginning to grow on the forum and users have found the message has made the game impossible to load onto the console. This message has mainly appeared when owners first try and start the game.

Some of the Xbox 360 owners have commented that they have replaced the game with another copy, only to be met with the same message when trying to load the game. So far Activision has not confirmed if these reports are true, but there does seem a problem for some. It has to be remembered though that considering the amount of copies that have been shifted, you are bound to get the odd problem encountered by some.

Have you had any problems or know of anyone else that has?

Games like these are really popular and fans anticipation of them is built up for months leading up to them releasing. But often just a few weeks after launching they can drop in price, and this is just one of the reasons an article on Wired.com is using to suggest you would be better off to wait.

With the amount of quality games coming out this time of year it can be very difficult deciding which to get. Besides the prices falling the second editions of games released often include DLC that early adopters will have to pay out for. Another thing to think about is when a game first becomes available there is often problems that need fixing via a patch.

We have all heard of the issues surrounding the servers for Call of Duty: Elite and Battlefield 3, and these get fixed in the weeks that follow. With the upcoming Skyrim on the PC that is set to be a massive title, and is likely to see lots of extras along with numerous bug fixes. If you wait a while you will not only save money but will have all the problems ironed out.

You may not agree with everything that the article over at Wired is saying, but if there a few different games you want it won’t hurt waiting a while before getting all of them. Obviously getting a game when it is first available you have to expect to pay more for it.

We had reports recently that some gamers were paying a premium to get MW3 a couple of days early. Do you get games on launch or wait a few weeks?

MW3 could quite possibly be the biggest game release of the year and press reviews continue to come in with high scores. Now there have been a large amount of users taking to Metacritic, and according to Gamepro most of them have been criticizing the new game. Via the press the Xbox 360 version of the game currently has a score average of 90 out of 100.

So far 479 people have written users reviews for the game with a great number of them not exactly being kind about the game. One user called Stasismind said “The funny thing is I had yet to realize this was the exact same game I’ve been playing for two years”; he went on to say the franchise is basically finished.

Other people said the franchise has had its day and should be killed off, and some may think it’s a bit of mischief by users but other titles such as Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception fall in line with critic’s ratings. Meanwhile things don’t get any better for the PS3 version of the game as out of 317 ratings 253 are negative. Many are saying it’s the same old thing and the hype of the title doesn’t match up with the actual playing of it.

You could say though that most people are too busy playing the game to go online and write a review, but it don’t look to good at the moment. What do you think of MW3?

Already the game has begun to break records as T3.com are reporting that Amazon have said the title has become the most preordered game in the retailers history. This is despite the current financial climate affecting many consumers around the world.

Previously the record was held by last year’s Black Ops and before that Modern Warfare 2, but MW3 saw a 32 percent increase on preorders and is set to smash records across the world. Liz Hosmer of Amazon said “This year has seen the release of a raft of great titles with ‘Battlefield 3’ anticipated as a strong contender to ‘Modern Warfare 3’ but the latest offering in the ‘Call of Duty’ series is the most popular title of the year to date by some distance”.

This news comes after an industry analyst Arvind Bhatia of Sterne Agee, predicted the game will shift around six million copies in the first day of being available to consumers. It is thought sales of this year’s title will rise by ten percent compared to last year’s offering, and is expected to shift around 18 million copies in the December quarter.

Battlefield 3 is expected to shift around 8 million copies by the end of the year, MW3 looks like it will more than double that figure. Have you already got MW3?

Activision launched the new service alongside Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 a few hours ago, but as CVG are reporting the service has already encountered some problems. The Call of Duty Elite service has been launched for the more hardcore COD players out there, but it seems it has been overwhelmed with demand.

These problems seem to be caused by the sheer number of gamers trying to log into the service. Problems have been noted though and the Call of Duty Twitter feed posted “We are aware of the issue”, and added that the “Surge of new Elite registrations is creating reg & login issues. Teams are working now to increase capacity”

The actual Elite homepage also notes the problems and asks users to be patient, and states that users don’t need to change their password as the issue is being caused by a load issue. It does look like the actual service is working fine; it’s just getting signed in that is causing a problem. Users are also being advised that all their COD Elite data is being safely recorded and will be available once issues have been ironed out.

Early problems may have gone away already and with such a huge amount of gamers trying to log on at once may overwhelmed the games servers temporarily. Is the service working ok for you now?