As many of you are aware of. The Call of Duty and Battlefield series have been competing for years now, but this year is different. The upcoming Modern Warfare 3 has been the target of skepticism, while Battlefield 3 has been garnering unprecedented pre-release attention. This extremely apparent behavior would make you think that EA has the upper hand this year, but you’ll be surprised what corporate has to say.

During a recent investor’s meeting, EA Chief Financial Officer, Eric Brown, shared some uncharacteristic uncertainty in Battlefield 3‘s ability to compete with the Call of Duty series.

Just to be clear, the [Call of Duty] franchise did about 23 million units worldwide. We don’t expect to surpass them with this year’s Battlefield 3, just to be very clear.

Link: http://playstationlifestyle.net/2011/09/12/ea-says-battlefield-3-has-no-chance-against-modern-warfare-3s-popularity/

Link: http://bf3blog.com/2011/09/ea-we-dont-expect-battlefield-3-to-beat-modern-warfare-3/

At least they're being honest.

of course not. Anyone who claims otherwise is simply foolish.

However, it will be the best selling BF game since BF2 and it will setup a continued growth to reclaim the top position it once had over CoD and other shooters.

Personally... I can't wait for it to launch.

Meh it's more like they're trying to say "ok we don't expect much" just so they can say "oh in the end in did better than we thought' later on.

You are right about this game growing the Battlefield franchise, but I doubt it will take the top spot away from COD any time soon, unless Activision fucks it up. 

By pre order numbers its looking to probably be their best Battlefield yet, and will more than likely pass sales of Medal of Honor, and Bad Company 2. I do however think it will sell less than half of what MW3 will sell. While not close to MW3 sales that is still a huge achievement for EA Games and Dice.

I have seen however that the console versions will only allow for up to 24 players in multiplayer. This is a big difference from what Battlefield fans remember when they could have 64 players in multiplayer. That is a large part IMO of what made Battlefield unique from many of the rest.

from what ive seen it will be a better game.