Sticking with Battlefield or moving to Modern Warfare?

Battlefield 3 may already be sitting on the shelves of some 5m gamers, but EA knows that’s not the end of the challenge.

With Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 being released worldwide on Tuesday November 8th, it’s safe to assume that at least a proportion of this user base will trade their copies of EA’s shooter in against its rival.

Indeed, many retailers are banking on it.

Is there anything EA can do to stop it? Executive VP Patrick Soderlund certainly thinks so.

"We all respect what Call of Duty brings and what they’re going to come with, and I think that we have an industry-leading multiplayer game that will make people want to stay with us, frankly," he told IGN.

"If you look at all the reviews that we’ve gotten, not a single one that I’ve seen has been negative towards the multiplayer. In fact, many state that the multiplayer is the multiplayer experience to have, the best in the world.

"And if I can continue to harness that and work on improving that and give the consumers more of that, then hopefully they’re going to feel loyal to us and stay."