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At Activision’s recent financial meeting CEO Mike Griffith announced that Call of Duty: World At War is doing very successful in the digital market as all three map packs for the game have combined sales of almost 10 million downloads.
Griffith also announced that World At World is “one of the top three titles played over Xbox LIVE even more than one year since its original launch.”
The map packs run for 800 MS points (or about $10), generating Activision almost $100 million dollars in sales just for the packs alone.
You can expect the first map pack for World at War 2 this spring on Xbox Live, the Playstation Network and on the PC.
It’s pretty easy for us to say that the Call of Duty franchise has become one of the best and most successful video game franchises of all-time. Now that it has reached that status, it’s likely that’ll we’ll start to see the Call of Duty brand expand to different types of games. Might as well start with a subscription-based game, right? That may be the case if we correctly read in between the lines of what Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said during today’s company financial call:
“If you think about the success that we’ve had in other product categories on subscription, you can get a sense of the direction that we want to take that franchise,” Kotick said of the Call of Duty series.
Kotick didn’t confirm anything, by any means. But like he said, we can get a “sense” of what they want to do. Activision Publishing president and CEO Mike Griffith also spoke during the financial call, and reconfirmed that a new Call of Duty title will be out annually, among other things.
“Our strategy continues to be to annualize our key franchises. We’ve indicated before that Call of Duty is on a two year development cycle given the content and work that needs to go into a high-quality game experience,” Griffith said during the financial call. “We also have new business models potentially for the franchise in the future and we’ve been building capabilities on both the business development side as well as the studio side of it.”
Last November, Activision Blizzard CFO Thomas Tippl stated during the BMO Capital Markets Conference in New York City that the company plans to launch new online business models for its top franchises, which just happens to include Call of Duty.
Today the ESA released its list of exhibitors for E3. Over 120 gaming and electronic related companies are listed to be at the show including the usual such as Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft along with never-before-seen companies at E3.
On a bigger note, many top game development companies are opting out from the show this year such as SouthPeak Interactive, Crave, Xseed, Koei, High Voltage Software, and NCsoft. There are several reasons for why these companies will not be at the show such as our down-turned economy and troubled relationships between the companies and the electronic expo.
E3 is expected to take place June 15-17 in Los Angeles, California and you can expect Division-Gaming to have live coverage of the show along with minute-to-minute updates. For further information on the show check out E3’s official website.
In Ubisoft’s fiscal year 2009-2010 Q3 conference call earlier today, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot revealed that the next Assassin’s Creed game will be set in Rome.
This game, presumably Assassin’s Creed III (which is unofficially in the works), will once again follow Ezio. “This time, [Ezio] will strike directly against the templar’s order in Rome,” Guillemot stated. This game will most likely be out before April 2011, as an Ubisoft financial release that was posted last month revealed.
We may also be seeing new Assassin’s Creed games frequently, as Guillemot also said today that they’re “going to come very often with that franchise,” though he also said that they don’t want it to be an annual franchise just yet.
After we saw the awesomeness that is the trailer for LEGO Universe, we’ve been dying to test the MMO out for ourselves. Well now is our chance, as well as your’s.
The LEGO Universe beta is now accepting signups. We recommend going to the signup site and signing up. You may end up being one of the lucky ones that gets to try it out before it gets released to the general public. I mean, honestly, why would you pass up the opportunity?
Not much info has been revealed as of yet, but the next Tom Clancy/Ubisoft franchise to be making a return is Ghost Recon. Ghost Recon: Future Soldier will bring with it some “cutting-edge technology, prototype high-tech weaponry, and state-of-the-art single-player and multiplayer modes.” It is being developed by the team that brought you the previous two games in the Ghost Recon series, Ubisoft Paris.
A multiplayer beta will be available before the game is released. The invitations will be available for a limited time to those who buy Splinter Cell: Conviction for the Xbox 360. We’re not entirely sure if the offer will be available for the other platforms as well, as Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot confirmed that Future Soldier will “be on all platforms: 360, PS3, Wii, PSP, [and] DS.” The teaser trailer (which is embedded after the break) just says that the invitation will be included in Splinter Cell: Conviction, no platforms mentioned. Hmmm. Guillemot also said that the Wii version of Future Soldier will “be done by a different team” with a “different approach … created for that Wii population.”
Ghost Recon: Future Soldier will be out on Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Wii, PSP, and DS sometime Holiday 2010. The teaser trailer is after the break:
We knew we hadn’t seen the last of the LEGO Star Wars video game franchise, which has sold over 20 million copies worldwide, has won numerous awards, and kick-started the film-to-video game LEGO series (which now includes Batman, Indiana Jones, and the upcoming LEGO Harry Potter game.) LucasArts announced today that the next LEGO Star Wars game, LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, will be coming this Fall.
If you are not familiar with the show “The Clone Wars,” then you may be slightly confused. Star Wars: The Clone Wars is an animated series that airs on Cartoon Network. The events of the show take place between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. Traveller’s Tales is developing the game, and they promise that the game will include…
“…all the characters from both seasons of the hugely popular animated television series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, as well as some fan-favorite characters from the beloved theatrical Star Wars Saga. The game will feature brand new battle modes, giving players unique, head-to-head combat and an upgraded level builder, allowing the creation of customized bases and in-game battlefields. Play either as a Jedi or Separatist with all-new character abilities, such as Squad command, Lightsaber slicing, Lightsaber jumps, long distance Jedi attacks and Grapple Tie-Ups, all within a new, easy-to-navigate hub.”
The game will be released on basically every single gaming system this Fall.
No matter how you are playing them, if you’re playing an original Xbox game online, you’ll no longer be able to as of April 15th, 2010. A letter from Xbox Live general manager Marc Whitten, as well as one from Larry ”Major Nelson” Hyrb, made it official.
“On April 15 we will discontinue the Xbox LIVE service for original Xbox consoles and games, including Xbox v1 games playable on Xbox 360 and Xbox Originals,” said Marc Whitten.
Even if you’re playing an Xbox original game on Xbox 360, like Halo 2, it will still lose online capabilities. Both Whitten and Nelson stated that reason for ending original Xbox support is to evolve the Xbox Live service.
We hope this doesn’t upset you too much. But you know, nothing lasts forever. Try upgrading to Halo 3 or Modern Warfare 2 if you still need that online gaming fix.
Last month, Rockstar Games revealed in their newswire that we could “expect to see a long-awaited reveal via a big cover story next month” on their long-awaited title L.A. Noire. Well, it’s officially next month, and Game Informer has posted the cover for the March issue of their magazine, and the cover story just happens to be L.A. Noire. Coincidence? I think not.
It’s true. The next issue of Game Informer will be arriving in mailboxes and on newsstands soon, and somewhere inside will be a 10-page feature of the game. The feature will focus on the “astonishing reconstruction of 1947 Los Angeles” as well as the game’s facial animation. The game is suppose to make you feel like you’re inside one of those old crime/drama movies, so the advanced facial animation will probably help out with that.
We’ll also find out which platforms the game is being developed for when the issue arrives. Be sure to check back here when the details hit the web.
After receiving a delay last month because it needed more polish, Splinter Cell: Conviction has been announced for an April 13th, 2010 release date. Hopefully this date will actually stick.
Ubisoft even made sure to set this release date in stone.
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