Test-drive of combat racer due in March; Singularity, Transformers set for Q2; previously announced new Tony Hawk, Spider-Man, James Bond games still planned.
Yesterday, Activision Blizzard released an earnings report that beat analysts' expectations while still posting a loss. The $286 million shortfall was due to a write-down of the company's rhythm-game assets, thanks to music games' sagging popularity. In response, Activision announced it would release only two rhythm games--one Guitar Hero game and DJ Hero 2--in the latter half of 2010 to avoid another music glut.
Activision also took the time to announce its 2010 release schedule, much of which was previously announced. New revelations coming out of a postearnings conference call with executives included a March multiplayer beta for Bizarre Creations' combat-racing game Blur, which will ship during the April-June quarter. Also due during that quarter are Singularity in June and then Transformers: The War for Cybertron soon thereafter.
While laying out Activision's lineup for the second half of 2010, executives reconfirmed a number of high-profile projects. As revealed last May and reconfirmed in November, a new Call of Duty game will be released in the series' usual holiday season berth. The Treyarch-developed game is rumored to be set during the Cold War era, possibly in Vietnam. Given Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's billion-dollar-and-counting in sales, Activision is lowering expectations for the next game, with CFO Thomas Tippl saying, "We've not planned on repeating the same level of success as we enjoyed in 2009."
Activision also restates its plans to ship a Tony Hawk Ride sequel in the back half of the year, a fact the titular athlete let slip just as the game was skating into a critical buzzsaw last November. (In January, he promised the follow-up would be "better.") Activision Publishing president and CEO Michael Griffith acknowledged that reviews weren't as "high as we would have hoped," but expressed confidence in the concept of peripheral-based play.
"The premise of standing on a skateboard and performing tricks that only the pros can pull off is very compelling," he told analysts. "This year, with the hardware complete, we will be focusing on improving the software in order to unlock the full potential of the board. We continue to believe that this innovative peripheral redefines the skateboarding experience and could potentially have different applications in the future."
Griffith also said the second half of 2010 would see the release of "games based on the Spider Man and James Bond franchises," a fact Activision officially announced last August. Though little is known about the Spider-Man title, the James Bond game has been long rumored to be a driving-centric game in development at Bizarre Creations. Unlike Activision's last James Bond game, Quantum of Solace, it will not have a feature film tie-in, as the 23rd film in the series is not scheduled for release until 2011.
It's about time we get a new GOOD Bond Game. Try getting Capcom to help with the next Bond Game, Did anyone see what Resident Evil Darkside Chronicles looked like? If Activision would think of the Gamers for once they just might be able to make more money. They should treat the Wii like Garbage, with out the Wii all the fat asses in the world would still be sitting on their fat asses eating potato chips, GIVE THE WII SOME RESPECT!
@jamerncc1701 Well said. I might add that the missions did not seem varied watsoever. The same strategy applies to all of them. Run and Shoot at whats rushing towards you.
I do believe that Valve skimped out on the SP portion of Left 4 Dead and it became really annoying when the AI characters had no more brains then the zombies. They do seem like they used less resources on the campaign because "Hey everyone's gonna play multiplayer so why should we care?" They have to have a game with a balance of both where neither portion of the game trounces another in terms of quality. P.S. If you include the expansion to the original call of duty there is actually 10 CoDs in circulation.
@jamerncc1701 So after all we both agree on the importance of SP. I would like to know your thoughts on Left 4 Dead's single player campaign if you have ever played it. How would you rate it? Was it reallly worth putting those single player missions ?. I am not interested in online gaming at all but I can see that in games like MW1, MW2, and BFBC2 that the actual campaign is barely 6 or 7 hours and they are all shifting to MP because its more profitable. I just hope that CoD7 does not end up as short because of that.
I am happy that you made no actual attempt to insult me and that you took the time to thoroughly explain your argument. To a certain point I agree with your statement they should work on the actual game rather than a bonus mode. I simply thought that since the game will probably be similar to MW2's anyway, they might have enough time to continue continue with the idea of a zombie mode. Also, I am more of a single player gamer too, most of the time i only play MP when my friends are on. The campaign in MW was epic and Treyarch should spend the majority of their time making an equally epic game. P.S. My friend used to yell at me for typing without caps so now when someone else does it I am simply reminded of this and because i thought you were provoking an argument i tried to counter your statement about me being "childish".
@jamerncc1701 chill man..we r just talkin..am sry i didnt make myself clear..i wasn't talking about multiplayer but about SP..i would hate to see the devs trimming missions for the sake of creating few zombie maps on multiplayer....this is my opinion..i have always liked SP more than MP..and i wasn't insulting anyone..infact, what you read as an insult was my own orhtography of left 4 dead ( L4F@$%D) which is a game that left me ferious- till now - over its completely silly single player campaign...and one more thing, lots of people here type without caps - why am i so special to you to u? am Straight in case you were wondering...
Call of Duty 7 needs to be as good as MW2 not just planning for something else. Well I going to look forward to see what it is going to be.
Well first of all zombies are just fun and people like it. Second Call of Duty's zombies were special, they relied more on strategy and adapting as opposed how well you could shoot. And third, ill consider your "insult" an insult when you can refrain from using a cuss word or substitute to make it one. P.S. Capitalize letters at the beginning of every sentence ya first grader.
what do people like about shooting some mindless 'zombies'.,, .. it ruins games n makes them so childish to play..call of duty has always been a friggin war game..not a L4F@$%D... game ,,,grow up .....
One word... zombies...ZOMBIES!!! I wish they would make a multilayer game mode where every map can be used as a zombie map for more lasting value, all they would have to do is make new textures and weather.
I just hope the next call of duty game has bullet wounds and gore like CODW@W. And I hope the campign is WAY longer than 3 acts*cough* MW2*cough*. I am confident the Multiplayer will be as good as it is in ever cod game....please just KEEP THE GORE FROM W@W. m RATED GAMES ARE ALLOWED TO HAVE GORE*cough*MW2*cough*
As long as Treyarch put dedicated servers back in they can expect a decent level of success on the pc. IWnet annoyed far too many people for gamers to trust matchmaking again.
I could really care less about people claiming the COD series is being "milked". There isn't really a COD game out yet that Ive "hated" and since I really only enjoy playing historic FPS and strategy games there isn't any alternative id like to see happen. I don't get why some people wanna see the COD series go away...
SPiderman Web of shadows was good game hope this will be better one, and about cod 7 come on launch modern warfare 3 not vietnam again.
@ASG_ They're not coming out with MW3 or anything. :? It's not gonna be ANOTHER MW2. It's gonna be totally different.
Greedy Activision STILL hans't lowered the price on COD4. ): And what's the point of buying MW2 if another one is coming out this year?
Hopefully they will milk the CoD franchise like they have the Guitar hero franchise and kill off the mediocre shooter.
If they choose Vietnam, please make a big improvement over the Vietnam mod that has already been developed for World at War. A alternate Cold War era game would be interesting though.
Modern Warfare 2 does deserve the hype. Maybe it's not as amazing as everyone hyped it to be, the story was Shatner, but it is a good game. A great game, in fact. I'm really curious about War for Cybertron, though. The designs of the Transformers seems to cater to old farts like me, so maybe the have some good gameplay to back that up as well.
Another Call Of Duty? Oh mere.. Lets hope they'll get a game good this time, not just shoot whatever you see. But the biggest hope would be that it won't be as hyped as it is.. Call Of Duty MW2 doesn't deserve the hype, neither live up for how good it was praised.
Can't wait for the next Call of Duty! It won't sell as much as MW2 but still, it's a big title of 2010
I am through with COD games for now. I do agree, MW2 was a huge letdown and disappointment.
In response to Gabe 447. I too would love to see a good WWI game, but I don't think Call of Duty is the right franchise for it. CoD is know for fast paced FPS action. The combat in WWI was mostly trench warfare, fought with bolt action rifles, poisned gas and Very heavy machine guns, even the tanks were more like slow moving armored cars. I think it would be difficult to turn that style of gameplay into the type of Call of Duty experience we're all used to. Also, for the record, I thought World at War was great! (this comment not directed at Gabe 447)
the general concensus is the WaW was a let-down; although vietnam does sound interesting.
I'm not a fan of Treyarch's versions of CoD... but I have to admit the Vietnam setting is interesting. There was a game that came out several years ago on PS2 that was supposed to take place in 'Nam and take war games to the next level but flopped. So hopefully Treyarch can succeed and make that happen. I'm looking forward to it!
Hopefully it's Vietnam era. I didn't really like WAW, but I am hoping in a Vietnam era game the guns would be balanced better then they were in waw. I would definitely get this. Just not a WWII game again please. It will sell well again, maybe not as good as MW2, but still good.
I, too, want another CoD for Wii. Having played both MW and MW2 on a PS360, I have to honestly say I prefer the motion controls (yeah, yeah... graphics... blah, blah, blah... I'm looking at gameplay). Echoing mailliamp, VC would be nice (but I'd trade it for a high framerate, good hit detection, and cleaner textures at long draw distances...). WWI as a game would be hard to pull off. Infantry missions would probably suck: trench warfare, charging and getting shot... rinse and repeat. If you want to go hardcore, there should be a US Revolutionary War CoD: Play as an American guerrilla with a Kentucky long rifle... it takes almost a minute to reload a single shot (so as you gain experience you can reload faster)... you use a hatchet up close... Redcoats march and fight in formation, so it's numbers vs. strategic hits. A Spanish-American War version might be more fun, because at least you'd have repeating rifles (a Krag-Jørgensen, or a captured Spanish Mauser). There are so many little conflicts, devs can make games for DECADES and not run out of venues/ideas (and they don't have to stick with the US): Panama, Falklands, 6-Day War, The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq-Iran war, Kurds vs. Turkey, Nicaragua vs Contras, Somalia's civil war, Gulf War, Russia-Chechnya civil war, Kosovo's liberation war... etc. It would be interesting for people to play as protagonists with whom they wouldn't normally associate.
If COD7 has dedicated servers ill buy it, but ill never pay 4 an over priced console port again.
I want another COD for Wii, yes yes call me a noob or whatever for having a wii but i dont care. The MOdern warfare reflex game was fantastic for the wii and one of the best wii games out there now and for a while I should think. Anyway Activision props for doing a great job and please bring voice chat and MW2 to Wii
So they are not planning on making COD7 as successful as COD6, I guess MOH is gonna win the bet then.
never gonna buy another COD game again. Hopefully the next ones won't come out at a time where very little top-notch games come out, therefore I won't be forced to buy from the lack of games at it's release time frame.
I would love to a cod game based off Ww1 ive never seen a war game based off it? Why Why Why!?!?!
Call of duty wont slack off. Why ? because EA is definitely up to something with their Medal of Honor with their Ace teams Dice and EALA making it together so Activision will probably not let medal of honor beat their flagship franchise which is call of duty. You know what's good with competitions? they make companies to give more effort to please the customers
can't wait for call of duty 7. However, hopefully Treyarch keep all the features from modern warfare 1 and world at war instead of making same stupid mistakes that infinity ward made in modern warfare 2 for PC!
After buying MW2, that would be the last Call of Duty game i will ever own. Gonna move on to MMORPG's now.(not WoW, that stuff is crack)
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