Modern Warfare 3 versus Battlefield 3! The fight of the decade between the two blockbuster franchises is finally set to commence, with each side prepping their various features and rabid fanboy commentators for the final showdown.
With early review scores and judgements for the two contemporary war shooters looking excellent so far, the race for top genre game looks neck and neck so far. Or does it?
Everybody’s favourite sales analyst, Michael Pachter, believes that Activisions popular franchise will come out on top this year, with final sales being double that of the EA shooter. Speaking to Forbes, Pachter estimated that Modern Warfare 3 will have around 16 million copies sold this year, while Battlefield 3 will only manage to sell around 8 million.
“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”, Pachter said.
Combined, the sales from the two games would amount to over $1.4 billion in fourth quarter revenue for their respective companies, while their sales would also cover around 15% of the gaming stock sold in that period.
In the long term regarding sales, Pachter also predicted that MW3 will sell a further 8 million copies, while BF3 would finish off by selling another 2 million games.
With sales figures like that predicted, it looks like Activision and EA are going to be having a very merry Christmas indeed, if Pachter is right with his predictions.
Last Updated: October 25, 2011
