Post 17 February 2011

By DJSADERS

EA CEO John Riccitiello has said that he expects DICE's Battlefield 3 to be the best product in the games industry this year.

"I've made no excuse for the reality that I want market leadership in the first-person shooter game business," the exec said at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference, according to CVG.

"In many ways I feel that we created the first mass market first-person shooter with Medal of Honor and unfortunately with the transition to the PS3 era we lost that. We're after it now.

"We think there's a window of opportunity here," he added, suggesting the company's primed to steal market share from Activision and current genre king Call of Duty. "We've been investing for three years to build Battlefield 3. I think it will stand up as the best product in the industry this year... and we're going dead at 'em."

Research has suggested that Gears of War 3 is UK gamers' most anticipated title of 2011, while Battlefield 3 is the eighth most wanted game of the year.

A load of Battlefield 3 details arrived earlier this month courtesy of US mag Game Informer. The title will reportedly be set in locations including Paris, Tehran and New York, while the story will be completely separate from Bad Company.

It will also feature four playable classes and 24 player online battles on Xbox 360.