EA’s Soderlund: I won’t give up until I’ve beaten Call of Duty

EA Games boss Patrick Soderlund has reignited the war of words over Battlefield versus Call of Duty.

He told MCV that the commercial success of Battlefield 3 will have undoubtedly worried Activision, and that EA will not rest until its shooter IP is No.1 around the world.

He made is comments ahead of the launch of Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty: Ghosts, which both launch in the UK within four days of each other (Battlefield out November 1st and Call of Duty out November 5th).

Competition is good,” said Soderlund. It brings the best out of people. If there was only Battlefield or only Call of Duty, then the development teams might have been a little bit more content. We don’t look at them necessarily and mimic what they do.

"But we think about them. Maybe they weren’t thinking about us much when we made Battlefield 3, but I can tell you, they are thinking about us now. They need too. We made a dent in the FPS market and we took share from them. And I am not going to give up until I’m No.1 and I am going to make sure I’m No.1.

We are spending a tonne of money on this, our teams are killing themselves every year to make great games. I want to give our consumers the best I can. We will strive to be No.1. If I said: ‘No.5 is probably fine,’ it’s hard for people to rally behind that message. But I wouldn’t say we could be No.1 if I didn’t think we could. I think I have the right team, the right product and the right strategy to get there.”

Unlike Call of Duty, Battlefield is not an annual franchise. And EA retired its other FPS franchise, Medal of Honor, last year. But Soderlund says there’s no pressure to release a new Battlefield every year.

We have other games now. We have Titanfall, which we didn’t have when we had Medal of Honor. To me it is about a balanced portfolio.”