Battle of Los Angeles

Shots have been fired in the war between the two biggest FPS brands.

In interviews with MCV, Activision has shrugged off EA’s Battlefield 3 as a credible threat to Modern Warfare 3 – while EA insists this is the perfect year to gain back market share” from Call of Duty.

The two games will be out in force at E3 next week, and go head-to-head at retail in November.

Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg told MCV the firm doesn’t pay much mind looking at what the competitors are doing.

It sounds trite but it’s true: we focus on what we need to do,” he said. I think EA talk about our games in the press more than we do. We’ve had competition every year for Call of Duty. It’s never been easy. This is one of the most competitive genres in one of the most competitive industries.”

MW3 launches with a new online service called Elite which Hirshberg said can grow the game into another record breaker.

However EA is resolute. European chief Jens Uwe Intat told us: With Battlefield 3 we have a superior games engine and top notch product. We are convinced that we will, in fact, have a better product than our key competitor.”

To read our exclusive interview with Eric Hirshberg click here. For our exclusive chat with Jens Uwe Intat click here.