In comments to stock analysts today (UBS Global Media and Communications Conference), EA CEO John Riccitiello said a number of interesting things. EA was going to increase quality while decreasing their head-count. Mass Effect 2 is going to be one of the biggest games of 2010. Oh yeah, he also dropped an interesting comment about the Battlefield franchise, "Battlefield represents our best opportunity of taking the first-person business back from Activision."

He goes on to say, "It (BFBC2) does online better, has destructible environments... you can drive the vehicles in the game... I think there's room for both but we've got our competitive juices flowing - we've taken it back in the Skate category and this is next, we're going after this with a vengeance."



This is a striking comment coming from Riccitiello and while I agree, given the focus on "modern warfare" Battlefield is indeed EA's best chance at chipping away at COD's dominance, he seems to be forgetting about EA's other big name FPS - Medal of Honor. It's particularly odd considering they have been talking about the MOH franchise being rebooted since early 2009 and just last week ramped up the PR efforts on the game. There's a teaser trailer (all teasing though, no pleasing) out, there's a big VGA trailer release coming up and EA is even pre-selling the game based on a vague description and some box art. Seems a bit odd doesn't it?

Perhaps it's not that odd at all though considering that EA has one team developing the MOH single player (EALA) and DICE working on the online component. The rushed announcements and the lack of any real information on a game that is supposed to come out in 2010 does seem a bit off. I'm not saying that the game is going to be bad, I'm just pointing out that they certainly are giving the appearance that they are rushing this game and slapping it together to get something out. Anything.

While he doesn't come out and say it, Riccitiello by NOT saying anything about MOH, one might infer that EA thinks the game won't be able to take on MW2 directly, but Battlefield: Bad Company 2 will.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 will be released on March 2, 2010. Pre-order you copy from Amazon by following this link.

Sources: Gamasutra and EA's Investor site

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