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From the VGAs Red Carpet: Treyarch's Mark Lamia
With Infinity Ward's studio heads on the outs with Activision, it was up to Treyarch to take over the Call of Duty series, and according to fan reception, it did exactly that. "The response that I've gotten," Treyarch head Mark Lamia tells us, "is that people are happy with the game." But he says during VGA's red carpet event that it was never about competition among Activision's studios. "We've just got to stay focused on what we want, what we're making and our own creative, and that's really the best way to do your best work." Now that it's become the Call of Duty heir apparent, what's next for Treyarch? "First thing we're doing," says Lamia, " is we're still working on Black Ops." Lamia promises Treyarch is listening to the community and will be responsive in tuning the game and providing new content. "So everyone who bought and is investing their time in Black Ops, they can expect that that's just how we work." Lamia says Treyarch is in fact "a Call of Duty studio as far as anyone is concerned." World at War's Zombies mode had a successful life on the iPhone, and we asked if Treyarch was considering trying to replicate that success with Black Ops. Lamia says he trusts developers Ideaworks to do a good job on a sequel if that's what they choose to do, but "it's not a question of can we do it or is it good to do it, it's really about focus. Right now we are just focused on the PC and console skus that were just launched. There's millions of people playing every day, and we're focused on supporting that."
Activision: Kobe Bryant Black Ops ad controversy is 'hypocritical'
Last month a live-action ad for Call of Duty: Black Ops debuted, depicting Jimmy Kimmel, Kobe Bryant and seemingly everyday people waging war in a desert battlefield. Some people were upset to see the Lakers star wielding an assault rifle, especially ESPN -- there was a discussion criticizing Kobe for his participation in the commercial. "He's smiling while wielding an assault rifle in combat while we have troops overseas at this moment doing that same thing for real, in combat," ESPN's Skip Bayless said of Bryant. Activision isn't sweating it, though. In an interview with IndustryGamers, Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg criticized any network who would complain about the content of the ad, yet accept the money to air it on their network. "I'm going to put it in air quotes, which you can't see, but the 'controversy' surrounding Kobe Bryant I find very hypocritical. Those same networks that are now questioning Kobe's inclusion in this had no problem accepting the ad and approving the ad, and accepting the dollars to run the ad on their networks. Are they being irresponsible to their fan base by running the ad on their networks? Because if it's good for the goose, it's good for the gander. I find that to be very hypocritical." Hirshberg also added that the core audience Activision was going for with the ad really seemed to enjoy it, so at the end of the day he considers it a job well done. "The thing that I'm most happy about and relieved about is it seems to be getting an almost universally positive response from the gaming community." He's right -- at least, when it comes to that Joystiq site, anyway.
November NPD: Best month ever for retail, Xbox
November is traditionally a big, big month for games, thanks to the impending holidays and the temporary financial insanity bestowed upon Americans by the Black Friday Effect. This November may have been the biggest. The NPD reports that last month was the "best November on record in terms of new physical retail sales," ahead of November 2008 by around $30 million. Call of Duty: Black Ops had the biggest first month of any game ever, with 8.4 million copies. And Microsoft (producer of the best-selling non-DS console) tells us that with 1.37 million consoles sold, November 2010 was not only the biggest November ever for Xbox, it was the biggest month ever. Thanks, Kinect! Thanks, new hardware! Handhelds were actually down vs. previous years, though the DS was still the top-selling console, with the Mario red DSi XL representing the majority of sales. Nintendo said that "over 1.5 million" DS systems were sold last month. After the break, check out the top-selling games of the month. You already know what's at number one, of course. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood follows at #2, with surprisingly strong showings for both Fable 3 and Donkey Kong Country Returns down the list.
Rumor: Raven Software working on stealth-based Bond game, follow-up to Wolverine 'on the backburner'
When it's not busy working on Activision's "largest digital offering ever" or making games with superhuman Nazis, Raven Software is allegedly working on another James Bond title for Activision. Bond fansite MI6 claims that the recently approved bankruptcy plan at MGM has allowed the unannounced Bond title to be "taken off hiatus," and says it's back in production at Raven. Additionally, the report alleges that the Bond title was one of two games being worked on by Raven -- a sequel to 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine is said to also have been in production, though that game is reportedly "on the backburner" currently. Given the recent death sentence handed to James Bond 007: Blood Stone by Activision (did you know that game was released, because it totally was) and the tumultuous story of Bond's 23rd film (said to now be back on track) -- not to mention Raven's ties to the very, very lucrative Call of Duty franchise and a recent thinning of the studio's staff -- we're a bit wary that the supposed stealth Bond will ever see the light of day. Regardless, we are totally, 100 percent confident in our unabashed excitement for the reignited Bond 23 plans.
Another Call of Duty: Black Ops PC patch to be deployed
Call of Duty: Black Ops players on the PC -- assuredly tired of the care package glitch dominating their online gaming -- will be happy to hear that Treyarch detailed forthcoming fixes to the game's multiplayer. Beyond the forthcoming care package glitch fix, clipping on various maps is being closed up and leaderboards will soon reflect "all kills, deaths, and assists properly." This is far from the first patch that PC Black Ops players have received, with issues being reported in the game's single and multiplayer right out of the gate. No ETA is given on the fixes, though Treyarch community man Josh Olin characterizes them as "in progress." In the meantime, well, enjoy your infinite SAM turret killstreaks!
Michael Jackson: The Experience moonwalks up UK sales chart, Black Ops king of the hill
Gran Turismo 5 ran out of gas after its debut week, dropping 61 percent in sales and into fourth place on Chart-Track's UK All Formats chart. The top three titles were Call of Duty: Black Ops, FIFA 11 and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. The big premieres for the week were Donkey Kong Country Returns and Super Mario All-Stars 25th Anniversary at 13 and 22, respectively. So, last week we almost neglected to mention Disney Epic Mickey, because it didn't make the Top 40. We thought its performance might have been an anomaly ... until it missed out again on the Top 40 and maintained its place at #11 on the Wii Chart. Not a good sign. Comparatively, Ubisoft's Michael Jackson: The Experience, which debuted down at #38 last week, had a thriller of a second week, shooting up to sixth place. It's now holding hands with Ubisoft's stalwart Just Dance franchise, which had its numerical sequel in the fifth spot. Find the full UK top ten after the break.
'Splosion Man 'splodes to top of XBLA sales chart
'Spolsion Man, one or our absolute favorites of 2009, enjoyed a surprise sales surge last week, rocketing to the top of the Xbox Live Arcade bestseller list. That's the power of Black Friday and a one-day, 75-percent discount. In fact, thirteen of the top twenty bestsellers for the week of November 22 were on sale for at least part of the period, and the only discounted XBLA title not to chart was poor Voodoo Dice. Amidst the apparently too-good-to-refuse deals, Crazy Taxi made a strong debut in the number six position in its first week of release, and Pac-Man CE DX ate up a top-ten spot in its second week of availability. As for Xbox Live activity, Black Ops recruits and Modern Warfare 2 veterans (who aren't about to surrender that easily) continue to hog the most bandwidth, followed by the Reach faithful and -- watch out for that Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood sneaking up the activity chart! Speaking of no surrender, how about World at War and Call of Duty 4 (remember that one?) hanging around the top twenty most-played Xbox Live games? No wonder Activision wants to better tap its gold mine next year. Both Top Twenty charts are posted in full after the break.
Gran Turismo 5 starts at pole position in UK sales chart
Gran Turismo 5 raced into first place on the UK sales chart last week, becoming the sixth largest PS3 launch ever in the region. In a good sign for the oft-delayed franchise installment, sales were up 6 percent from Gran Turismo 4's launch week numbers in March 2005 on the PS2 (according to Chart-Track). Call of Duty: Black Ops and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood both took one step back this week, grabbing silver and bronze, respectively. CoD:Blops dropped another 42 percent in sales two weeks after its record-setting premiere, while AC:B slipped off a Borgia tower, but caught itself 32 percent of the way down. FIFA 11 took the fourth spot with a sales surge, and fifth belongs to... yup, loyal chart watchers, you got it: Just Dance 2 is unstoppable as it waves its arms in the air, selling copies like it just don't care. As for debuts on the chart that didn't go vroom-vroom, Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare shambled in at 14, while Ubisoft's Michael Jackson: The Experience had the late king of pop make one duke-y of a debut down at 38. Find the full UK top ten after the break. Update: We just noticed that Disney Epic Mickey began its retail quest in the UK last week. It didn't even make the Top 40 in the All Formats chart. It debuted at the 11 spot on the Wii Chart. For comparison's sake, Michael Jackson: The Experience premiered at number five on the Wii chart, which ended up being 38 on the All Formats.
Call of Duty: Black Ops debuts at #1 (and #7) in Japan
Call of Duty: Black Ops launched in Japan last week, and though it wasn't the major cultural phenomenon it was here, it managed to top the Media Create sales charts for the week of Nov. 15-21. Well, the PS3 version did, anyway, with 128,922 copies sold. The Xbox 360 version came in at #7 with 30,279 copies. This is just the subtitled release -- it'll get another sales boost in December when the dubbed version arrives. Other success stories in Japan last week include the sequel to Fossil Fighters on DS at #2, Pokemon Black/White at #3, Super Mario All-Stars Limited Edition at #4, and Tactics Ogre on PSP at #5. Black Ops trumped Colors last week, as Sonic raced to a #33 finish on Wii and #49 on DS.
Activision will 'never' charge for Call of Duty multiplayer, Hirshberg says
"Are we going to be charging for multiplayer? The answer is no," Activision's Eric Hirshberg, CEO of the Publishing division, told IndustryGamers in what we could only hope was a Stuart Smalley staring-in-the-mirror moment. "The experience you have out of the box, connecting with the online community to play Call of Duty is absolutely integral to the experience, and we'll never charge for that. It's not going to be something we'll attempt to monetize; it's part of the package." As if his point wasn't clear, Hirshberg further insisted that he could say "unequivocally" that Activision will "never, ever charge for the multiplayer." Earlier this month, statements from both Hirshberg and CFO Thomas Tippl hinted at vague plans to better monetize the franchise next year with more digital content, which in turn renewed speculation about the long-considered Call of Duty subscription model.
Microsoft's Toulouse explains why swastikas are banned on Xbox Live
An Xbox Live user recently inquired to professional banhammer-wielder Stephen Toulouse whether or not he could use a swastika as his Call of Duty: Black Ops emblem, to which Toulouse responded, "No, of course you can't, we'll ban you." Apparently, this sparked quite a reaction from gamers who witnessed the exchange, who defended the use of a swastika as a symbol widely used throughout several Eastern religions. In a post on his personal blog, Toulouse explained why this argument doesn't hold much water with the Xbox Live moderation crew. "Let's be clear: no educated human on the planet looks at the swastika symbol ... and says 'oh, that symbol has nothing at all in any way to do with global genocide of an entire race,'" Toulouse stated, "'and, even if it did, one should totally and reasonably ignore that because it's a symbol that was stolen or coop-ted from religions.'" He succinctly adds, "If you think the swastika symbol should be re-evaluated by societies all over the Earth, I think that's great. Your Xbox Live profile or in game logo, which doesn't have the context to explain your goal, is not the right place to do that." We certainly know that every time we see someone use the swastika as their identifier on an online game, our first thought is, "Oh, how nice, they're pushing for a global re-evaluation of the meaning of the swastika." Like, that's just common sense, isn't it?
Black Ops maintains top UK sales spot, AC: Brotherhood has strongest debut in franchise
Call of Duty: Black Ops sales may have dropped 85 percent in the UK last week, but even with that massive dip its record-breaking debut ensured that Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood would stop at second place. 63,000 copies separated the two. According to Chart-Track, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood had the well-deserved, largest debut of the franchise to date. The only other top ten premiere this week came from Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, which raced into third place. The remainder of spots in the top five are occupied with games that involve feet. FIFA 11 defends its spot at fourth, as Just Dance continues reaping the benefits of its Faustian deal and its sequel does the Charleston in fifth. Check out the full UK top ten after the break.
Pair of Call of Duty: Black Ops PC patches released via Steam
Treyarch and Activision are apparently big, big fans of quilt-making, as they simply cannot stop sewing new patches into the PC version of Call of Duty: Black Ops. Not one, but two new auto-updates are available through the Steam launcher, the combined changes from which are posted just below.
Connectivity fix for Wii version of Call of Duty: Black Ops incoming
It's rare for games on the Wii to get any post-launch support, thanks largely to the console's proclivity for overly complicated digital distribution, as well as its relatively meager amount of internal storage. Treyarch isn't letting those hurdles stop it from fixing a few connectivity issues in the Wii version of Call of Duty: Black Ops: community manager Josh Olin has announced that "We have fixed many of the problems you have reported and are currently testing those fixes in anticipation of releasing an update." The patch will be available "within the next week or so." We've contacted Olin to find out exactly how this update will be delivered. In-game? Through the Shop Channel? Storks? Some kind of stork delivery system?
Black Ops grosses $650M in five days, first updates live
Activision claimed this morning that Call of Duty: Black Ops took in $650 million in five days, surpassing the company's previous record-setting, $550 million launch week with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. According to CEO Bobby Kotick, "Call of Duty has become the first entertainment property in history to set five-day launch records for two consecutive years across all forms of entertainment." Beyond the fiscal fidelity provided to Activision, Call of Duty has helped Microsoft to trumpet new records for Xbox Live. The service reportedly broke a record of 2.6 million unique players in-game on the November 9 launch day, with 5.9 million multiplayer hours logged that same day. Updates are available now for both the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game. For all the declassified patch intel, check out the Black Ops forums. %Gallery-93856%
Call of Duty: Black Ops Intel video walkthrough
Man, remember when you had to comb through message boards looking for tips on how to find that 200th medallion or the location of that secret power-up? Those days are gone, thanks in part to handy video walkthroughs. Today, we present some footage from Game Videos documenting the location of every piece of Call of Duty: Black Ops Intel in the game. After all, knowing is half the battle!
Call of Duty: Black Ops' fabled 'Mannequin Easter Egg' revealed
A few days ago, Activision's Dan Amrich hinted at an Easter Egg located on Call of Duty: Black Ops' fast-paced multiplayer map, Nuketown, accessible by popping the heads of all the mannequins therein with a quickness. After a couple days of trying, one group of players struck gold.
Call of Duty: Black Ops breaks UK launch records
We already knew Call of Duty: Black Ops shattered day-one sales records in the UK, but let's just add a full week of intel to that with reports of 2 million units sold in the region over five days. Chart-Track estimates Activision-Blizzard's latest installment of the hit franchise took in a comfortable £81.9 million ($131.5M). For some disturbing perspective, Black Ops grossed more during its launch than the whole UK entertainment software market did over the past couple weeks ... combined. According to Chart-Track, last week became the highest grossing week in UK entertainment software history, with £113.8 million in sales. The last record breaker was £107.6 million, back in week 52 of 2008. (What was the number one game then? Call of Duty: World at War.) The record-breaking week was assisted by the launch of Microsoft's Kinect peripheral. Eight of the 11 UK Kinect launch titles debuted in the Top 40. The top premieres were Kinect Sports, Dance Central and Ubi's Motion Sports, which took fourth, 13th and 15th places, respectively. Check out the full UK top ten after the break.
Call of Duty: Black Ops' Nuketown multiplayer map holds many secrets
Professionial Activision, umm, guy Dan "One of Swords" Amrich has posted nine interesting secrets from Call of Duty: Black Ops' multiplayer map Nuketown. Sure, everybody probably noticed the double rainbow all the way across the sky (what does it mean?), but did you notice the names on the mailboxes, or the fact that the town clock and population board actually count the actual time left and players present in the match? There's also a few secret RC-XD hidey holes (seen above), and apparently Nuketown isn't the only map with a few secret places to send your buzzing remote controlled car of doom. Say what you want about Activision's evil empire or the money-making steamroller that Call of Duty has become, but no one can say Treyarch didn't pack the stuffing out of this game with hidden content.
Bobby Kotick on the business of Call of Duty: DLC, Treyarch, Infinity Ward
This is the second part of Joystiq's in-depth discussion with Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, in which we've covered his side of the Brutal Legend situation, Activision's Bungie partnership, and why Kotick's been cast in the role of video game industry villain. Up second: The Call of Duty business, from Xbox Live to DLC to a rotating stable of development teams. "You know, Call of Duty games probably represent more than 50% of the total Xbox Live traffic," Bobby Kotick told me when I asked him about Microsoft's recent $10 Xbox Live price hike. You see, Activision is tasked with monetizing an immensely popular online game through a traditional – and inflexible – system: a retail disc played in a video game console controlled by another company. And despite a constant refrain of Call of Duty subscription rumors, the only subscription you may pay to play it online isn't to Activision at all; it's to Microsoft. "I think the thing that sometimes even I don't fully appreciate – and I think I have a greater appreciation for it today, having spent a lot of time up with Microsoft recently – but they invest billions of dollars in the Live platform. Billing, credit collection, things like foreign currency conversion, being able to manage point systems. All of that is extremely expensive to manage and maintain." Of course, this is all to say that it deserves something, but how do Activision and its customers factor into Microsoft's agenda? "Because of our Blizzard experience we have an incredible understanding of how important the provision of appropriate customer service is," Kotick said, citing 2,500 World of Warcraft customer service employees for the US and Europe alone. "What we'd like to ideally see is that the investment in the subscription fees going towards the provision of a higher level of customer service [...] to see some portion of the subscription fees go towards game enhancement." Activision does enjoy a "very modest amount of the subscription fees," Kotick told us, but he's more interested in seeing any cost increase in the service go towards "directly benefitting the Call of Duty players."
