While there’s no denying that Battlefield 3 is going to give Modern Warfare 3 a serious run for its money, and may even chip away at the franchise’s market share, there aren’t too many who would say that Battlefield 3 will outsell MW3. In fact, Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities actually thinks that the two will combine for $1.4 Billion in Q4, making this a very profitable gaming season.

His predictions for Modern Warfare 3 (16 Million units) does have the extremely popular Infinity Ward side of property nearly doubling Battlefield 3’s number (8 Million), but Battlefield 3’s number isn’t anything to be ashamed of.

Yes, if its pre-order numbers are any indication, Modern Warfare 3 is most likely going to top Black Ops as one of the highest grossing pieces of entertainment ever, one also has to look at the bigger picture.

This competition between the two modern military shooters will do a lot for the games industry, and might even further put it into the limelight. The mudslinging and the name-calling certainly didn’t do much, but huge sales numbers should.

What’s equally as interesting as Pachter’s sales predictions is the fact that he sees about 2 or 3 Million gamers picking up both Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3, meaning that a larger percentage of both game’s sales units will be “solo buys.” There has obviously been a strong congregation that feels Battlefield 3 is the superior product because of its graphical prowess and more team-based multiplayer, but apparently those gamers won’t even look in Modern Warfare’s direction.

With one releasing tomorrow, and the other following two weeks after that, you could say we are in the calm before the storm of video game buying madness. If Pachter is right, and both these games move a ton of units in Q4, gamers who purchase one or both of the games could be part of the record breaking.

Are you going to be picking up both Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 or just one of them? Do you think that Pachter’s predictions for crossover are reasonable?

Modern Warfare 3 releases November 8, 2011 for the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC.

Battlefield 3 releases October 25, 2011 for the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC.

Source: Forbes