Only way to beat COD is to "make a better game," says Riccitiello

EA CEO John Riccitiello believes Call of Duty is only beatable with a better game; something, he says, EA plans to make.

Speaking in an interview with Kotaku, Riccitiello said the way to go about beating the franchise is to: "Make a better game, and make a better game again. Over time we can take the lead."

"The way you unseat a market leader is you make a better game a couple of times in a row," he said. "If I had to pick the story I'd like to play out [is] next year is we ship a 90 and they ship an 85 [Metacritic]. Activision has] an awful lot of momentum without their brand, no doubt. What I've witnessed a couple of times in the games industry is the way you unseat a market leader is you make a better game a couple of times in a row. "

Riccitiello figures EA went from having a tiny market-share in shooters to about a fifth thanks to Battlefield Bad Company 2 and DICE.

"I think it's interesting that Battlefield Bad Company 2 got the same Metacritic score (both are 88- ed) as Black Ops," he said. "We knew we were building on [the] Unreal [graphics technology] for Medal of Honor which wasn't our foot-forward tact. We knew that going in. Our next game [Battlefield 3] is being built on the second generation of Frostbite which I think is at least in my opinion is a class act for FPS. I think we're going to lift the game pretty dramatically in the first-person shooter category.

"I have great expectations to do a lot better in 2011 than in 2010 on the strength of a couple of products like Bulletstorm and Crysis [2], but most importantly for us, Battlefield 3, which I feel incredibly good about."

As far as the speculated shooter from ex-Infinity Ward fellas Respawn was concerned, Riccitiello would only say "they're working on a really cool product".