Analyst: Modern Warfare 3 Will Outsell Battlefield 3 by 2 to 1

The analyst Michael Pachter, who is watching the video game industry for the firm Wedbush Morgan Securities, has stated that he believes that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will sell twice as many copies during this holiday season as Battlefield 3.

Pachter believes that Modern Warfare 3, which is being created by Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games for Activision Blizzard, will sell 16 million units this year and will manage to shift another 8 million to gamers during next year.

Meanwhile Battlefield 3, developed by DICE for Electronic Arts, is estimated to sell about 8 million units across all platforms during 2011 and will add another 2 million copies next year.

Pachter said, “I'd guess that around half of the console copies of Battlefield 3 will be bought by people who also buy Modern Warfare 3, so around 2 to 3 million will buy both. I don’t see much cannibalization of the titles.”

The analyst says that the two first person shooters will account for about 15 percent of all the packaged video game sales for the current quarter and will generated more than 1.4 billion dollars (a little more than 1 billion Euro).

Publisher Electronic Arts has recently said that Battlefield 3 has more than 2 million pre-orders, which is a record for the series.

Activision also announced that Modern Warfare 3 was getting more players purchasing before the launch date than last year's Black Ops.

EA has admitted that it will probably not be able to beat the mighty Call of Duty series this year but said that it plans to get some market share and prepare the ground for an all out assault during 2012.

Players in North America will be able to get Batlefield 3 today, with Europe getting it on Friday, while Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will arrive all over the world on November 8.