DICE and publisher Electronic Arts have to be pretty excited with the reviews that are coming in for Battlefield 3. The scores are good, with most being a 9/90; and that is showing excellent potential for the company to reach initial sales of 8 million for the title, which is how analysts seem to think it is going to shake out.

Even with Battlefield 3 predicted to sell 8 million copies, it is expected that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will sell an estimated 15 million copies across all platforms during the 4th quarter. It is expected that when you combine the two games they will make up the majority of sales of titles during the 4th quarter and the sales momentum is expected to carry right into the first quarter, as well. First quarter sales for Battlefield 3 are expected to be at least another 2 million, and Modern Warfare 3 is expected to rack up another 4 million with another 4 million before the end of 2012.

It does, however, seem that the Call of Duty franchise has its strongest challenger yet to its supremacy in this category, and that sounds like mission accomplished by the folks at DICE. It will be hard to continue to push the Battlefield series to compete with the Call of Duty series, but we think the gap has at least been closed.