14 DAY TRIAL // The arrival of Call of Duty Elite alongside the regular Modern Warfare 3 game might cause loyal players to defect to the other big first-person shooter of the year, Battlefield 3, at least according to analyst Michael Pachter.
Activision is set to debut a special kind of online service, named Call of Duty Elite, later this year, alongside Modern Warfare 3, which will add plenty of free and premium features on top of the regular Call of Duty multiplayer experience.
Still, no matter how many times the company explains the service, plenty of players are going to desert the Call of Duty series, in favor of Electronic Arts' Battlefield 3, which arrives two weeks earlier than Modern Warfare 3, at least in the eyes of games industry analyst Michael Pachter.
"We expect EA's game to perform exceedingly well, eclipsing the 6.5 million units sold by the last iteration, and think that Activision's introduction of Call of Duty Elite (its premium subscription service) could cause a small number of loyal Call of Duty players to defect to EA's game," Pachter said in the latest research note from Wedbush Securities, via CVG.
Pachter is quite confident in Battlefield 3, even if he predicted earlier this year that it won't be able to really hurt Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.
"While we think that Activision's 2011 Call of Duty sales have the potential to eclipse last year's mind-boggling 20 million units, due primarily to the network effect created by the game's remarkable 17 million weekly active unique online players, we think that the company's shares may come under pressure when EA's game is launched, particularly if Battlefield 3 receives a 90+ Metacritic score."
Battlefield 3 is out on the PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 on October 26, while Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is set to appear for those platforms on November 8, right alongside Call of Duty Elite.