14 DAY TRIAL // Games industry analyst Michael Pachter is adamant that the upcoming Battlefield 3 first-person shooter won't defeat Activision's next Call of Duty game.
The shooter genre is currently being dominated by the Call of Duty franchise, with the latest two games, Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops, managing to sell a record breaking amount of copies.
Electronic Arts is hoping to counter the next Call of Duty title with the release of Battlefield 3, a new shooter from the DICE studio that is powered by the stunning all-new Frostbite 2 engine.
Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter isn't that confident in EA, saying that the company will have to sell a huge amount of copies if it hopes to make a dent in Activision.
"There is no prayer that Battlefield 3 will top the next Call of Duty, silly question," he said to IndustryGamers. "EA is trying to gain share incrementally, and I'm sure that if it is a great game, Battlefield 3 will sell 25 - 35% more copies than the last version. It would have to sell around 300% more than the last version to topple Call of Duty."
What's more, Pachter believes Battlefield 3 will even struggle to take sales away from Call of Duty, because Activision's franchise is increasing its loyal user base every year, so its sales figures will no doubt increase at the end of the year when a new game is launched.
"The question you didn't ask is whether Battlefield 3 will take share," he added. "Based upon the growing installed base of CoD multiplayer players, it's possible that both games will see higher sales in 2011, so I wonder whether EA will actually "take" share."
EA is quite bullish when it comes to Battlefield 3, with company CEO John Riccitiello saying that the new shooter will be the game of this year, no matter what Activision manages to launch with the new Call of Duty iteration.