Since the release of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Medal of Honor last year, EA CEO John Riccitiello has become wholly determined for his company to dominate the shooter game market, but the only way to achieve this goal is by toppling the current genre king: Call of Duty.

While Bad Company 2 and even Medal of Honor have allowed EA to make significant strides towards competing with the industry-stomping Call of Duty franchise, EA’s shooters have so far been unable to reach quite the sales success of Activision’s titles.

This year, with Battlefield 3 from EA and DICE, Riccitiello is confident that his company has the better product. Speaking to investors recently Riccitiello claimed:

“We know we have a big competitor… But head-to-head with Call of Duty in Q3, we have the superior game engine, a superior development studio, and a flat out superior game. Our goal is to significantly gain share in the huge FPS category and to put the other team on defense.”

Strong words indeed, but even if this is the case (remember, three companies are reported to be working on the next Call of Duty and we haven’t seen a single snippet of it!), can the quality of Battlefield 3 be converted into sales success over and above Call of Duty?

According to EA, pre-order numbers on Battlefield 3 are up a whopping 700% over Battlefield: Bad Company 2 last year during similar timeframes, while Riccitiello has been on record as saying that the launch of Battlefield 3 will be the biggest in EA’s history as it plans to commit “enormous” resources towards supporting and promoting the game later this year.

Rumoured to be releasing in November (the traditional release month for Call of Duty), Battlefield 3 is going to put up an incredible fight for market dominance in the face of a new Call of Duty game, not only aiming for superior quality, but superior sales performance, too.

We look forward to the scrap - it can only mean better games out of both EA and Activision this year!