If you’re keeping track of the throwdown between EA and Activision for gaming supremacy — a contest that will inevitably be won by the more popular and more well known Modern Warfare 3 — EA got the first piece of good news, learning that initial sales for their Battlefield 3 installment broke previous sale records to become the fastest selling EA video game in history.

Consider this a head start for EA if you will, although, expect Activision’s offering to quickly close the gap when it launches next Tuesday.

Whatever the final numbers are for these first-person shooters, and regardless of Modern Warfare 3‘s impending success, EA will undoubtedly still be celebrating Battlefield 3, especially when you consider the latest installment sold five million copies in one week, which catapulted to the top of EA’s fastest-selling game list. This means that ever since arriving in stores on October 25th, the newest version of Battlefield sold faster than EA’s ubiquitous Madden franchise, which is news in and of itself.

That fact that Madden is not the fastest-selling game is surprising, but then again, Madden gets an update every year and the new version of Battlefield has been completely overhauled for the both the next-gen consoles and the PC market, where the game truly shines:

EA also released additional information concerning the successful launch of Battlefield 3:

EA released several indicators of the game’s success: Battlefield 3 fans executed 73 million “savior kills”, 48 million “revives” by medics and destroyed 67 million vehicles. And they also accrued 2.5 million Facebook Likes and 200,000 Twitter followers, EA said.

Of course, the true test of Battlefield’s appeal will be known when Modern Warfare 3 — which is being billed as “the most anticipated game ever” — hits the stores, which happens in on November 8. Even with Battlefield’s undeniable hot start, some industry analysts aren’t too worried about how the newest installment of Modern Warfare will do:

[Michael Pachter, videogame analyst, Wedbush Morgan Securities] forecasts that Modern Warfare 3 will come out on top with 16 million copies sold worldwide this year. That’s double the sales total he predicts for Battlefield 3, which should sell 8 million copies globally. And that’s just this year. Modern Warfare 3 could sell an additional 8 million copies in 2012 and Battlefield 3 could tally another 2 million units sold next year.

Considering the incredible success of Modern Warfare 2, it’s not as if Pachter is going out on a limb with his prediction, although, it should be noted that, in only a week’s time, Battlefield 3 is over halfway to his prediction of 8 million units sold, and the 2011 Christmas shopping season — a period that should boost each title’s sales even further — hasn’t even begun yet, at least not in earnest.

Just in case you need yet another reminder, here are the launch videos for both installments, starting with Battlefield:

Whatever your feelings toward each franchise are, there’s no denying it’s a great time to be a gamer, especially one who enjoys the FPS genre.