It’s the second week of November, you know what it’s all about. Everyone is done with Halloween, working on recipes for Thanksgiving, thinking about Christmas presents and it’s the yearly release of Call of Duty. Yes, Activision is now ready for war against Battlefield 3 to win over the sales. The Call of Duty series is an outselling annual machine.
For the past few weeks there has been speculation that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will top the sales of its predecessor Black Ops which made 22 million in 24 hours. Analysts such as Michael Pachter predicted 25 million units sold on the release date. If MW3 does sale achieve those sales then they will stick it to EA’s face again that they are the higher demand. All year EA and has been talking trash about Activision and their game. EA’s Battlefield 3 It was hyped to kill MW3. John Riccitiello the CEO of EA pushed the hype by constantly calling out Activision’s franchise. He told Industry Gamers, “all I want to do, if you will, is to have [Call of Duty] rot from the core.” And he told Escapists, “[Battlefield 3] is designed to take that game down… [We] think we’ve got the better product.”
Activision replied that smack talk wasn’t good for the industry. “This isn’t politics. In order for one to win, the other doesn’t have to lose. This is an entertainment industry, it’s an innovation industry and, at best, it’s an art form. But we’re still a young art form. If we were the movie industry the movies wouldn’t even be talking yet.” Games are always up to compete whether it is intended like now or unintentional like Resistance and Gears of War. It’s just how you handle the press.
Battlefield 3 came out last month and made $5 million sales on it’s first week. A new high for EA but nothing close to the record breaking Call of Duty. Actually, CoD: Black Ops made more that that on it’s first day (5.6 million in the US and 7 million worldwide). EA changed their tune after the game’s release and called off their bitter rivalry. EA Eexecutive Vice President Patrick Soderlund told IGN. “We all respect what Call of Duty brings and what they’re going to come with. Right now we’re out in the market, and that’s all I know. When they come out, they come out, and I wish them the best of luck. They’re partners in this industry, and I play all their games and I look forward to many of them, and all I can do is try and make sure that people stay interested and want to have more Battlefield.”
But EA is throwing the towel in yet, they have a last ditch effort to slow down the sales of Call of Duty. Battlefield 3 is having a sweepstakes weekend. Playing between November 11-13 you have a chance to trip to DICE studios in Stockholm, Sweden, a game system and $5,oo0. The second prize is $5,000 and the third is the winner’s choice of the following systems – PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, or Alienware gaming PC. All anyone has to do is log in to multiplayer games and they are automatically entered. Each day entered is another chance to winning.
The past couple years Call of Duty set and broke world records on sales. It’s impressive whenever the record breaking sales come out and it’s fun to predict the numbers but overall, this isn’t a fight about mankind’s greatest game ever. Gameplay, graphics and reviews do tie-in but this is strictly it’s sales. The sales of Battlefield 3 outselling Modern Warfare 3 and Modern Warfare 3 outselling it’s predecessors.
by visually via 
blistergaming.com 
