Pachter: Battlefield 3 has "no prayer" in toppling Call of Duty this year

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has said Battlefield 3 has no chance in taking on and beating this year's iteration of Call of Duty.

Asked what the chances were of the DICE shooter against this year's Call of Duty effort, rumoured to a jointly developed Modern Warfare 3 by Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games, Pachter told IndustryGamers it had "no prayer."

"EA is trying to gain share incrementally, and I'm sure that if it is a great game, Battlefield 3 will sell 25 - 35% more copies than the last version. It would have to sell around 300% more than the last version to topple Call of Duty.

"The question you didn't ask is whether Battlefield 3 will take share; based upon the growing installed base of CoD multiplayer players, it's possible that BOTH games will see higher sales in 2011, so I wonder whether EA will actually 'take' share," he added.

Battlefield 3 had an impressive showing at GDC a couple of weeks ago, with two gameplay videos appearing since then. Read our impressions from GDC here.

This year's Call of Duty iteration is yet to be announced.