COD vs. BF3 marketing war to cost $200m

The impending Battlefield 3 vs. Call of Duty marketing battle will cost the games' respective publishers around $200 million, EA boss John Riccitiello has claimed.

Riccitiello made the revelation during a presentation at the Ad Age Conference in New York, while talking up the impending showdown between its DICE-developed sequel and the next entry in Activision's juggernaut FPS brand.

"This November we're launching Battlefield 3. It's going up against the next Call of Duty, which is presently the number one game in the industry - a game that last year did $400 million in revenue on day one," he explained.

"This game is designed to take that game down. If you're looking for a battle of the titans - Red Sox vs Yankees... Microsoft or Google - and what the tip-off point is for this holiday season, this is it.

"There will be a couple of hundred million dollars of marketing against these two products going head to head. Similar designs - we think we've got the better product - it's going to be a blast."

No slight on the Battlefield franchise, but EA will need every penny it can scrape together if it hopes to overhaul Activision's series. The latest entry in the franchise, last November's Black Ops, recently became the biggest selling game of all time in the US, shifting nearly 14 million copies in that continent alone.

Activision hasn't announced details of this year's Call of Duty outing, though rumours of either a Modern Warfare prequel or futuristic space shooter have been flying around.