EA producer Sebastian Enrique has told MCV that EA are targeting the Call of Duty audience with FIFA and the next installment, FIFA 14, could knock Activision's shooter off the top of the console sales' charts.
While Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 was the best selling game of 2012 FIFA 13 fell just 70,000 short and Enrique believes this year the EA Canada produced title might just close the gap.
"We have a very strong feature set so I am very confident that we can do better in terms of sales and numbers than FIFA 13. Both the physics and the new shooting visual and animation are going to feel amazing. You will feel really rewarded when scoring or even when missing the target," he said.
Activision meanwhile have said they expect this year's Call of Duty title to see lower sales than Black Ops 2 which may help FIFA 14 overtake the franchise.
"We have an ambition that is outside what is developed in the game. We want to create the best football game but we also don't want to just be the best sports video game – we want to be the best videogame, period. All these numbers about what is the No. 1 franchise helps EA, so hopefully we can do it. It would be realyl rewarding for everyone working on the game," Enrique added.
Speaking about the competition, Konami's PES, Enrique commented "I respect Konami a lot and they produce good games. A lot of people have played their games for ages. I think having competition is a good thing but we don't consider competition to just be Pro Evolution Soccer. Call of Duty is also competition," he added.
"People that are playing Call of Duty are not playing FIFA. We want them to play FIFA and we achieve that by creating the best possible game that we can create. That's what we focus on. We want to exceed everyone's expectation and exceed our own expectations and create the best game. Competition or not, these goals are not going to change for us," he concluded.
EA officially announced FIFA 14 last week calling it "the greatest sports game on the planet" for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC. "Additional platforms" are to be announced in the coming months.
In terms of more direct competition with Activision EA are also prepping Battlefield 4 to challenge the next Call of Duty, which is set to be revealed before E3 in June and is believed to be entitled Call of Duty: Ghosts.
