Industry analyst Micheal “Drippy Dinkus” Pachter has weighed in on the War of Military Shooters, picking the safer of the two sides and backing Modern Warfare 3. However, it wouldn’t be a Pachter prediction without something to set fanboy fires blazing, so he also claims that whatever Battlefield 3 sells, the next Call of Duty will double.
The analyst believes Battlefield 3 is capable of achieving eight million sales and that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will climb to sixteen million throughout the remainder of the year. Moving into 2012, Pachter reckons Battlefield 3 could shift an additional two million, while MW3 can grab a further eight 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 two to three million will buy both,” he stated. “I don’t see much cannibalization of the titles.”
EA has said before that conquering Call of Duty isn’t this year’s prime objective — it’s about stealing market share. Like Pachter, however, I don’t see Battlefield 3 as having the potential to cost Activision’s series any fans.
I think Call of Duty will start to falter when people get sick of military shooters the same way they got sick of plastic guitar games. EA’s only going to hurry that along by putting these rival shooters on the market — which I guess completes their objective in the long run, but it’s a bit of a kamikaze attack.
Modern Warfare 3 Will Generate Over $1.4 Billion in Q4 [Forbes via CVG]
