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Call of Duty Elite app gets Black Ops 2 support on iOS, Android
The Call of Duty Elite app has been updated on iOS and Android to support this week's monolithic debut, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. You can use the app to check your career stats and recent match performances, edit your classes, and search for and apply to Clans – pretty much the same stuff you can do with the app via Modern Warfare 3.You can also use it to stream Call of Duty Elite TV, access multiplayer guides, and track challenges. The iOS app is universal and compatible with all iDevices running iOS 5.0 or greater; however, the app does not have iPhone 5 screen support.
Call of Duty Elite subs getting four more pieces of unnamed MW3 content this year
If those 20 pieces of planned DLC for Modern Warfare 3 weren't enough for you, perhaps four additional bits will do the trick. Activision is sharing the four-piece bonus with Elite subscribers throughout the coming months, but isn't saying exactly what the content will be. All we know is that it'll be interspersed throughout the planned Elite content "season."Elite's platform ubiquity is increasing as well, with the service's planned launch on tablets coming in the near future. Nearly 2 million folks have already snagged the app across both iOS and Android -- that's quite a few, considering approximately 7 million folks are Elite users. Activision promises a variety of (specified) updates to Elite's functionality over the next few months.%Gallery-150792%
PSA: Call of Duty Elite iOS App now available
As promised, the Call of Duty Elite app for iOS is now available via the iTunes App Store, and just like its console counterpart, it's totally free. The Elite app offers a chance for Modern Warfare 3 players to track stats, player progression, revisit past matches, and a variety of other services, though we're told it's all the more thrilling if you're paying for the annual Elite subscription. The application is expected to arrive on Android devices next week.
A Thanksgiving weekend close-up for Call of Duty Elite's second take
When we last spoke with Call of Duty VP of Production Daniel Suarez two weeks ago, just after the record-breaking launch of Modern Warfare 3, things weren't going so well. Sure, MW3 sold 6.5 million units in a single day, but Activision's high-profile Call of Duty Elite service fell squarely on its face. Now, two weeks later, Elite is operational and Suarez says Activision is confident the service can withstand not only the Thanksgiving holiday but a potential post-Black Friday surge. "It was a lot of hard work from where we were two weeks ago, which was an embarassing place," Suarez confessed. "And now we're at a place where we're confidant people will be able to enjoy the service." And while Elite is operational or, as Suarez put it, "up on its feet," the team continues to push out new builds almost daily. "We still have some bugs and some kinks to work out," he said. "We've been pushing out fixes everyday to address people on Twitter" and elsewhere.
Activision: Call of Duty Elite to be up and running by Dec. 1
While it's been a rocky start for Activision's Call of Duty Elite service, it would appear that there is finally light at the end of the tunnel. Speaking with G4, Activision's VP of production, Daniel Suarez, said that the current goal is to have Elite online for everyone by December 1. "They kind of have to bear with us while we bring this all back up, but for us it's literally 'Give us those couple weeks, we're giving those to you for free and come December 1 the goal is that we'll have everything up and running,'" Suarez said. Activision's previous effort to quell concerns of subscribers included a free extra month of subscription to the service, while Beachhead currently works to get Elite, well, working. And while Beachhead monitored the beta for months, admittedly it couldn't foresee just how many users would sign up. But hey, we finally have some kind of promised timeline for full functionality. Let's just hope Beachhead and Activision can honor that promise.
GameStop moves 600K Call of Duty Elite subscriptions, a 'top 10 launch' this year
Wondering how Call of Duty Elite is doing? Well, stability-wise it's still a touch-and-go mess. But sales wise, you could call it a "hit." During an earnings call today, GameStop prez Tony Bartel said, "In the case of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, we worked closely with Activision, Sony and Microsoft to pre-order and deliver nearly 600,000 instances of the Modern Warfare Elite DLC to date." So a single retailer delivered 600,000 paying subscribers to Call of Duty Elite, on the back of 6.5 million day one purchases across all retailers. That sounds significant, right? Bartel says, "This places the launch of Elite as one of our top 10 launches of the year so far." We followed up with GameStop for some additional color, and were told Call of Duty Elite "is the most successful DLC launch of all time," for the retailer. Still think Elite was a bad idea? [Image credit: bfads.net]
How Beachhead is putting Call of Duty: Elite back together again
With Call of Duty Elite still struggling to serve its much-touted blend of stats and features to the throng of Modern Warfare 3 consumers, we asked Call of Duty VP of Production Daniel Suarez to explain the outage, what Activision and Beachhead Studios are doing to fix it, and when we might finally be able to see what Elite is all about. After months of hype, confusion, controversy, and promises, the ambitious web service has failed to launch and, in so doing, has failed to silence the skeptics. It didn't take long to realize Elite wouldn't hold up to the traffic. Beachhead Studios chief Chacko Sonny posted a notice on the Call of Duty Elite status page in the early morning hours of launch day, but the game had been in consumers' hands for some time. "It's a worlwide launch for MW3 and Elite, so we had a launch occuring Monday late afternoon with Australia and then everything kicking in into Europe and then into the East Coast in the US and then the West Coast," Suarez recounted. "So the launch of MW3 had been huge and we knew it would be huge, it just translated into a tremendous amount of traffic to Elite. And we anticipated it to be big, it just turned out to be even bigger than that." The problems began at the earliest stage of the process: registration. "The high demand from the console application and registration on the website from the PC really crippled the registration and login process which then translated into the backend servers being slammed," Suarez explained. "So we've been working around the clock to alleviate access into the system and we've had a large number of people now able to register. We've resolved that piece of it and now we're actually working on getting the service back up and running to a point where poeple can then enjoy it."
Call of Duty Elite still 'intermittent,' annual memberships bumped to 13 months
While Modern Warfare 3 appears to be continuing the trend of stable, successful Call of Duty multiplayer launches, the much-ballyhooed Call of Duty Elite service hasn't fared so well. Despite a beta and a solid indication of the platform's requirements, Elite has been down since launch day. While Activision and Beachhead Studios continue to toil away on the problem, they've added another update to the CoD Elite status page letting eager gamers know what's what. "And for our premium members who are Founders, know that granting your status and delivering your in-game benefits in MW3 is a priority," the statement reads, addressing the early paid adopters of Elite. "Also, to ensure that every premium member receives their full money's worth, we are immediately and automatically extending your membership to Call of Duty Elite by 30 days at no additional cost." So that means your one-year membership is now a thirteen-month membership. But what if you haven't bought Elite yet? "If you're still considering becoming a premium member, we're going to extend Founder eligibility until the end of the month," the statement continues, "and you will also receive the additional 30 days of access." So that's thirteen months of Elite and a one-month extension on Founder eligibility. A decent enough consolation package for premium members, but the free users will have to simply wait for Elite to get back online before they can start tweaking their loadouts from work. Stay tuned for an interview with Activision on what's happening with Call of Duty Elite.
PSA: Call of Duty Elite now available on Xbox Live
You may not be able to buy copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 just yet (well, not all of you), but you can always get yourself queued up for battle with the game's Elite application, which is already available for download via Xbox Live Marketplace. Coming in at just under 100MB, it ... uh ... doesn't do very much until you have a copy of MW3 and some multiplayer under your belt, as we were met with a prompt on load asking us to do as much before jumping into Elite. The client has yet to arrive on the PlayStation 3's PSN, but we're betting it'll be available tomorrow at some point alongside the company's weekly content update. Unfortunately for PC users, Elite won't be available at launch tomorrow, but instead will arrive "when it's ready." And in case you haven't been paying attention, the game launches tomorrow on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.
Call of Duty Elite for PC won't be ready at launch
Call of Duty Elite, the ambitious stat-tracking and community service that will launch with the console versions of Modern Warfare 3 next week, will not be available for PC at launch. Developer Beachhead notes that the PC is an "insecure platform" (as the PSN quickly looks to the sky and whistles) and that its uncomfortable with giving away prizes "when people can easily cheat their stats." The developer notes that without a central, trusted resource for stats, a lot of the competition features become unfair. "We're as committed as ever to the PC, but the need to ensure a safe PC environment is greater than ever. It's really extensive. We need more time to get there, so Elite on PC will not launch on Day 1," Beachhead Studio head Chacko Sonny told Activision social media manager Dan Amrich. "We're working our butts off to make it happen, but we won't release it until we know that PC gamers can enjoy Elite as it's meant to be." When will Elite launch for PC? Chacko is using the old Blizzard stand-by: "It will be ready when it is ready."
Tour Call of Duty Elite's virtual world through the eyes of Modern Warfare 3
Worried about Mom on Facebook infiltrating your super elite squad of Modern Warfare 3 multiplayers? It looks like that won't be an issue with Call of Duty Elite's Facebok integration into MW3, though that guy from high school you don't wanna talk to might end up bugging you constantly. The good with the bad, folks.
Call of Duty Elite beta finally available on PlayStation 3
The Xbox 360 Call of Duty head start doesn't just apply to DLC, where the platform enjoys a limited period of exclusivity; it also applies to the forthcoming suite of services known as Call of Duty Elite. Or, rather, applied. The Xbox 360 beta program kicked off over two months ago but today, Activision has announced that the beta is also available for PlayStation 3. "Beta testers can take their current Call of Duty multiplayer experience to the next level by jumping into the Beta version of the Call of Duty Elite service, as beta access will start to be activated in stages, with limited invitations rolling out effective today," the press release reads. The beta is of course limited to Call of Duty: Black Ops, with the full feature set locked until Modern Warfare 3 hits retail on November 8. While many of Elite's most popular services will be free, a $50/year premium subscription will also be available, which notably includes a year's worth of DLC for the game. Whether premium -paying PS3 players will still have to suffer through Xbox exclusivity is unclear; we've asked Activision to clarify. Until then, if you want in on the beta, head to www.callofduty.com/elite and enlist!
Infinity Ward on the 'natural progression' of Call of Duty franchise development
"I can only speak on behalf of Infinity Ward, but I think it's a natural progression of how things have been going in general," Infinity Ward Creative Strategist Robert Bowling explained. We spoke last week during a Modern Warfare 3 preview event in Manhattan, in a hotel about 60 blocks north of the Wall Street setting in the game's campaign. I'd asked Bowling about the upcoming Call of Duty XP extravaganza, the variety of devs working on Modern Warfare 3, and if those things are an indication of a more unified franchise development structure -- a structure perhaps forged out of necessity, given the staff losses IW has seen over the past year. "We're at a state now in the Call of Duty franchise, where you have several teams working on CoD that have their own very distinct styles on what type of gameplay they deliver," he continued, in reference to Sledgehammer, Infinity Ward, Treyarch, and Beachhead all working on various Call of Duty projects. "And I think that's a great thing for Call of Duty in general, especially if you're having games come out every year. To have very distinct flavors and to have very distinct styles, it allows us to innovate in different ways and not feel forced to innovate in the same ways and build on the same interactions in the other games." Infinity Ward was showing off the newly added Spec-Ops Survival mode at the event as well, where I was handily carried on Bowling's back through eight waves of enemies before a juggernaut murdered us both. Much like Gears of War's Horde and Halo's Firefight modes, Spec-Ops Survival is, by Bowling's own description, an "infinite wave-based mode." A lot like the Treyarch-developed Call of Duty "Zombies" mode that has thus far missed inclusion in any Modern Warfare release. While Bowling won't deny the allure of adding a Zombies mode to the Modern Warfare titles ("It's a stellar game mode!"), he believes that his branch of the franchise wouldn't be the right fit for it. "I think it comes down to design philosophies. Each game has its own personality and voice. Ours typically stick to the authentic/fun aspects, where there's goes in a different directions that's still fun, but unique to Treyarch's voice and their design sensibilities," he explained. He wouldn't outright say whether or not Spec-Ops is exclusive to IW/Sledgehammer, or if Zombies mode is exclusive to Treyarch, but it seems to be heavily encouraged that it stays as such. But then, he's only able to speak on behalf of Infinity Ward.
Call of Duty Elite invitation-only beta begins July 14
Activision's stat-tracking and community service, Call of Duty Elite, has yet to receive a firm launch date, but this morning we learned that Elite will enter "invitation-only" beta starting on July 14. Though Elite won't be fully functioning until Modern Warfare 3 drops in November, the beta will launch first on last year's Call of Duty: Black Ops. After opening the registration site last week, Activision says "over 1 million" Call of Duty fanatics have signed up for entry into the beta thus far. The company has yet to fully detail the differences between the paid version of Elite and the free one, but the beta announcement ambiguously notes it'll "give users a taste of the experience." Sounds ... elite?
Call of Duty Elite Q&A: We ask Activision to clear up some of the confusion
This week's reveal of Call of Duty Elite left us – and you, if the comments are any indication – with more questions than answers. So we rounded up Activision VP of Digital Jamie Berger to answer some of the more common questions. For his part, Berger wasn't shy about acknowledging that confusion. "There's just going to be confusion," he told me over the phone. "There's just so much we're trying to lay out in front of people at one time. So not at all surprised that we either weren't clear on some points or people were confused." The biggest point of confusion was undoubtedly the free aspects of the service, so let's start there: What's free in Call of Duty Elite? "The whole Career section," Berger tells me. "All of your stats, the personalized leadersboards, the heatmaps, the weapon stats, the ability to import your Facebook friends ... personal best, ability to compare, etc." This section bears the most resemblance to other offerings in the space, notably Bungie.net, as many of you mentioned. And like the core Bungie.net service, this section of Elite will remain free, including new features that are added to it. Sounds un-innovative you say? Berger says it's up to the team at Beachhead to push for "innovation, even in things that have been well established like a heatmap or a leaderboard, where we know there's room for improvement." The Career features will be front and center in the beta this summer, so interested parties will have plenty of opportunities to tell Beachhead how innovative they are.%Gallery-124696%
Call of Duty Elite enlisting 'Hollywood talent' to create web TV series
The Call of Duty Elite news train keeps on keeping on, with UK paper the Guardian reporting that a premium membership will include "exclusive access" to a Call of Duty-themed web TV series. "We have engaged some top Hollywood talent to create linear video content that will be exclusive to Elite members," Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg tells the Guardian. "That content is inspired by Call of Duty." With Elite intended to maintain, or even increase, interest in the Call of Duty brand between its annual releases, some linear video programming could certainly help bridge that gap and keep subscribers coming back to Elite. "If you're a sports fan, there are lots of ways for you to connect with that hobby, that passion, not just on the day that the games are played, but throughout the week, and we wanted to give [Call of Duty players] real entertainment value," Hirshberg says. And that's about all we have in the way of details. No word on whether the Hollywood talent Activision's procured will create live action, ala Find Makarov, animated, ala Halo Legends, or machinima content, ala John Hillcoat's excellent Red Dead Redemption short. Hirshberg says, "We're not going to give much more detail until we have something to show. That'll be later in the year."
Call of Duty Elite preview: Building a better mousetrap
"There's been a lot of speculation and we'll continue to say this: We do not and will not charge for multiplayer." While Jamie Berger, VP of Digital at Activision, saved that commitment for the end of the nearly 30-minute reveal of Call of Duty Elite, we thought we'd get it out of the way first because, like Mr. Berger said, there has been a lot of speculation. And in the interest of elucidation, we'll get another of Mr. Berger's comments out of the way: "When it launches in the fall, Elite is going to offer a premium membership." So if Call of Duty Elite isn't some kind of "Online Pass" to play Call of Duty with your friends, then what is it and what will a premium membership include? We'll get back to the issue of cost later but, before we do, it's important to walk you through just what the team at Beachhead is trying to do with Elite. To hear them say it, Elite is nothing less than "Activision getting in front of our players and leading them into the future of connected entertainment."%Gallery-124696%
Call of Duty Elite is the paid 'digital platform' from Beachhead Studios, built for MW3 [Update: Now with video!]
[Note: Our preview of the Call of Duty Elite service is live here!] Hours ahead of the agreed-upon embargo for the news, the Wall Street Journal is the first to report on Call of Duty Elite, the long-reported "digital platform" in development at Activision's new Beachhead studio. Designed to complement this fall's Modern Warfare 3, Elite will be a paid service though "portions of the service will be free" including a Facebook-inspired Groups feature. Other features of the service include the Bungie.net-like ability to display stats to analyze player performance, "gauging factors such as which weapons have been most successful for them in killing enemies." If you're worried that you'll suddenly have to pay for online multiplayer in Call of Duty titles, don't be. The Journal reports that "players will still be able to compete against each other online without subscribing to the service." Activision hasn't yet pinned down a price point, though it does expect the cost to be less than comparable "online-entertainment services" like the $8/month Netflix. Part of that fee will go towards a "customer-service operation that will be needed to support it." It will also include the year's map packs, which cost $15 each, taking some of the sting out of any annual charge. [Update: The trailer detailing the entire service has been leaked on YouTube – hat tip @CheapyD – ahead of tomorrow morning's 9am embargo; if the WSJ article left you with some questions, try the video after the break. Still have questions? We'll do our best to answer everything tomorrow morning! Update 2: Looks like Activision pulled the original YouTube trailer but, now that the embargo's up, we added our own version after the break. Click away!]
