EA: NFS series has sold more than 100m

EA has announced that the Need for Speed series has sold more than 100 million units since its launch in 1994.

That's according to the publisher's internal estimates, which also suggest the games have generated over $2.7 billion in sales.

To celebrate all this, EA helpfully provided news outlets with some exciting statistics and little-known facts about the Need for Speed series.

Unfortunately we've misplaced those, but we think we can remember some of them off the top of our heads:

• There have been 15 Need for Speed games released across more than 14 platforms. Yes, they did put "more than 14".
• If you put all the cars featured in Need for Speed games back to back in a straight line, it would be very long I expect.
• Thanks to the Need for Speed, hundreds of teenage boys learned how to type "Emmanuelle Vaugier" into Google Image Search.
• The third Need for Speed game, Hot Pursuit, led to disagreement at developer EA Canada over the use of Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound" technique on some of the camber around the twistier mountain roads.
• And don't forget the lesser-known spin-off, Need for Speedos, a Crazy Taxi-style game where you had to visit all the JD Sports in the city buying swimming trunks.
• Or the even less successful Need for Paedos.

The latest Need for Speed games are Need for Speed: SHIFT, Need for Speed: NITRO and Need for Speed World Online, a free-to-play online PC version, is due out in autumn 2010.