When EA started the pushback against Call of Duty with Battlefield 2: Bad Company, the ratio was ”95/5” to Activision’s Call of Duty. While ”some people snigger”, these fights are crucial.
EA aren’t putting all their weight behind just Battlefield to rumble in the first-person shooter space as they’ve also got Respawn’s Titanfall and Star Wars: Battlefront.
”Look, we are absolutely going for it,” said Gibeau on taking on Call of Duty: Ghosts. ”It’s a competition and we feel really good about Battlefield 4, and we have an old saying at EA which is ‘transition is our friend’, and we’re going to try to lap them with new technology, new innovation and new capabilities.”
”So do I think we’re going to do better than last time? Absolutely.”
”When we started this challenge, back with Bad Company 1, I think the ratio was something like 95/5, so we pushed and pulled to get that figure even,” Gibeau continued. ”Something I learned from the EA Sports business - with regards to FIFA versus Pro Evolution and Madden versus 2K - these fights are good for the industry. They’re good for customers.”
”Competition drives innovation, and from our perspective some people snigger at these two companies going head-to-head but actually it’s good for our industry, it’s good for customers and it’s good for our dev team.”
While DICE may be gearing up Battlefield and Battlefront for the frontline against Call of Duty, and calling in mercenaries bands from Titanfall, they’ve taken original war-time FPS King Medal of Honor out of rotation.
”The shooter rotation we think about now is Battlefield, Titanfall and Battlefront, and so we like those three brands going forward,” he said. ”We’re working out how we’re going to line that up because that’s what you’ll see from us. With regards to Medal of Honor, you try things in entertainment and if they don’t work you try something else.”
”From our perspective, Battlefield 3 and Battlefield Premium continues to grow.”
Battlefield 4 releases on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 October 29th in the US, November 1st in EU.
