Geek Gestalt

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is said to have broken the single-day sales record for an entertainment property. According to Activision, the game earned $310 million in North America and England alone in its first 24 hours.

(Credit: Activision)

So much for the supposedly unbreakable first-day sales record set last year by Grand Theft Auto IV.

On Thursday, Activision said that its brand-new Call of Duty 2: Modern Warfare, which hit store shelves on Tuesday, had "shattered" the previous record for opening-day sales by an entertainment property, earning $310 million in North America and the U.K. alone. That equates to 4.7 million copies of the new game sold in those regions, and, if true, would eclipse the previous first-day sales record of $310 million globally, which GTA IV set in May of 2008.

Given that GTA IV had nearly doubled the previous record of $170 million, set by Halo 3, I wondered at the time whether its new mark was unassailable. Clearly, the new Call of Duty has answered that question, and loudly.

Now, we have to ask once again whether there could be another challenger for the crown. It would be foolish, it seems, to conclude that there won't be, given the dominance of franchises like Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Grand Theft Auto itself, and, of course, Call of Duty.

A bigger question could be: Why do we care? That's especially true given how frequently these mega-records are broken. Still, it's hard not to get worked up about what it means for a single video game title to bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in a single 24-hour period, particularly while we're still mired in a fairly deep recession.

There are all kinds of arguments to be made about why video games do well in tough economic times, and I've trotted a number of them out in this space. But most games don't come anywhere near selling $310 million worth of product in their entire lifetime, let alone on their first day, so Activision--and its Infinity Ward studio, which actually developed the new Call of Duty--seem entitled to a little bit of attention.

But at the rate these records are falling, I'm going to have to start thinking twice every time a new game sends me one of these announcements about breaking records. Sooner or later, it's not going to be all that noteworthy, no matter how much money is earned in a single day. Until then, though, watch this space for word on which game will be next in line for the throne.

You might think that starting a brand-new, high-quality, full-glossy magazine in one of the worst publishing environments in years would be a suicidal business idea. After all, take a look at just about any magazine you can think of, and, thanks to the veritable collapse of advertising, odds are it's about as thin as can be.

But to the folks at Future--a leading games media publisher--the time couldn't be better to launch World of Warcraft: The Magazine, a new quarterly title that is expected to be unveiled at this weekend's BlizzCon event--the world's biggest World of Warcraft fanfest--in Anaheim, Calif. The magazine will be the "official" WoW magazine, and is both endorsed by and produced with the editorial cooperation of WoW publisher Activision Blizzard.

And, indeed, the timing for the forthcoming magazine is clever: The first issue is planned for sometime this fall, just as WoW celebrates its fifth anniversary. And with an astounding 11.5 million players of the game now spread out around the world, Future is hoping that by promising potential readers stunning artwork, behind-the-scenes looks at ongoing development, deep dives into the game's lore, and perhaps even occasional scoops about new features or other WoW elements, it will offer fans an invaluable experience. In fact, Future sees this magazine as something along the lines of a collectible coffee table book.

Still, Future has chosen a difficult business model for the new publication. Each issue is expected to be 148 pages long, with precisely zero ads, which means that the title is shut off from traditional magazine revenues, and therefore will rely entirely on subscription fees. On the other hand, that same dynamic also means that it should be shielded from the vagaries of the advertising market, something that is currently taking down one magazine after another.

According to Future, World of Warcraft: The magazine will be offered for subscription only--no single copy sales--with U.S. readers paying $40 annually, those in continental Europe 35 euros and the British 30 pounds. The magazine will be published in English, French, German, and Spanish.

"The magazine market is suffering a rough time," said John Gower, the international director of FuturePlus, the title's publisher, "but only those magazines that are based on advertising models. We've seen our magazines increasing across the board, especially the hobbyist" titles.

That may be true, but in order to support what the publishers say will be a costly blend of commissioned art, in-depth articles written by veteran journalists and behind-the-scenes access, Future will have to convince a great deal of its players that it's worth their while to pony up $40 on top of their $15 monthly game subscription fees, even as those same players can find an enormous amount of WoW-related information online.

And that proposition is clearly not for everyone, even some of the most passionate WoW players.

In the newest version of the Guitar Hero franchise, Guitar Hero 5, as many as four players can all play guitar at the same time, instead of just two. Further, any combination of instruments is now possible.

(Credit: Activision Blizzard)

SAN FRANCISCO--The first couple of weeks of September are going to be a banner time for music video games. On September 9 (09/09/09), the much-anticipated The Beatles: Rock Band will hit store shelves, just eight days after Guitar Hero 5 gets its chance to rock living rooms everywhere.

With the Beatles game, it's easy to imagine long lines and huge sales figures. After all, this will be the first time that any of the recent slew of music-oriented video games will feature any Beatles songs, let alone dozens of them.

But with Guitar Hero 5 (see video below)--has so much time gone by already that there could even be five Guitar Hero releases?--one has to work just a little bit harder to envision the big bucks that its publisher, Activision Blizzard, surely is hoping to bring in.

Still, the guys at Neversoft, the game's developer, have proven time and again that they know what they're doing. The Guitar Hero franchise has produced hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and created a dynamic in which people everywhere are now comfortable picking up and jamming away on a guitar, albeit a plastic one with buttons instead of strings.

And with that in mind, one has to give the Neversoft team the benefit of the doubt for their new game, which will be released for all the major video game platforms.

On Thursday, I stopped in at a Guitar Hero press event here and had the chance to speak with two of the executives most responsible for the new game: Brian Bright, the project director at Neversoft for Guitar Hero 5, and Tim Riley, who oversees the Guitar Hero franchise's music licensing.

Among the big-name rock stars who appear in Guitar Hero 5 as characters is Carlos Santana.

(Credit: Activision Blizzard)

One of the things I was most interested in was the rationale for a new Guitar Hero game. To be sure, game companies like Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, and Take-Two have a mandate to generate massive revenues, and so franchises like Guitar Hero are tried and true in that regard. But in spite of that, each new edition of a franchise game has to have something significant to offer to entice enough customers to earn its keep.

To hear Bright tell it, the best rationale for Guitar Hero--besides its 85 new songs by 83 artists--is its "Party Play" mode in which players can jump in or out of songs any time they please, all with the click of a single button.

What that means, Bright added, is that Guitar Hero 5 will offer a potentially broad new audience an entirely new level of "accessibility," in particular because in the previous versions, many people playing for the first time would have found themselves needing a little hand-holding to get started. Now, he said, that's no longer the case, and players new and old will be able to easily and quickly go right into rocking out.

Another important Guitar Hero 5 innovation, Bright said, is an "any instrument" selection that will, for the first time, allow more than two people to play guitar at the same time rather than someone in a foursome having to play drums and someone having to sing. And even if there isn't a mad rush to grab a guitar, this features means that any combination of instruments is, for the first time, possible, whether a group is playing cooperatively or competitively.

Downloadable content
Given that many players of the game's previous iteration--Guitar Hero: World Tour--likely paid to download songs, Activision is making it possible to port most of those songs to Guitar Hero 5. The company said 152 of the 158 downloadable songs from the earlier game will be compatible with the new one, though users will have to pay a "nominal re-licensing fee," the amount of which the company hasn't publicly spelled out yet.

Among the innovations in Guitar Hero 5 is the ability for Xbox players to use their Xbox Live avatars.

(Credit: Activision Blizzard)

And that means that with the 85 songs Guitar Hero 5 comes with, plus new downloadable songs, the new game's players can have set lists of potentially hundreds of songs, Bright said.

I wanted to know a little bit more about how Activision persuades musicians to allow their songs to be included in Guitar Hero, especially after learning how the Beatles were won over for the forthcoming Rock Band game.

Riley, the publisher's music licensing specialist, said that as the Guitar Hero franchise becomes better-known, he and his team have an easier time of it. In part, that's because "the larger the game gets, the more known it gets within the (music) industry (and) with the artists themselves."

And that means that Riley and his team have now had the chance to get musicians like Arctic Monkeys and Elliott Smith--whom they've never worked with before--to contribute songs to the game. Indeed, he said Guitar Hero 5 features songs from nearly 20 artists who have never allowed their music to be in a video game before.

Of course, it doesn't happen overnight. In the case of Arctic Monkeys, Riley explained, it took multiple visits with the band to show them demos and explain what the Guitar Hero franchise is all about to get permission.

One big factor, Riley added, was being able to assure artists that their music is "safe" in Guitar Hero, meaning that users won't be able to easily pirate the songs from the game.

At the same time, he explained that for a lot of musicians, games like this are now seen as an attractive way to get their music in front of large audiences, particularly because the record industry is becoming more and more notorious for doing a poor job of helping distribute new music.

"Just by having a song in the game," Riley said, "kids become familiar with the song, or the artist, and will go out and buy (it) or go out and purchase more music from that artist."

At GDC Thursday, Kristian Segerstrale, CEO of PlayFish, one of the most successful publishers of games for Facebook and MySpace, talked about five lessons he thinks the mainstream games industry can learn from social games.

(Credit: PlayFish)

SAN FRANCISCO--While Nintendo's Wii continues to outpace expectations and certain games are making fortunes for their publishers, a strong argument can be made that the hottest segment of the video games industry is one that is still in its infancy: social games.

These titles, which are popping up by the bushelful on platforms like Facebook and MySpace, as well as on Apple's iPhone, are garnering user numbers that would previously have been thought impossible. And in a deep recession, when even the strongest console manufacturers and biggest game publishers are being forced to shut down projects and lay off workers, people have no choice but to sit up and take notice.

At the Game Developers Conference on Thursday, Kristian Segerstrale, the CEO and co-founder of PlayFish, one of the most successful publishers of social games, upped the ante, stating his case for how the mainstream video games industry can learn from his side of the business.

In his talk, "Five lessons from social games that matter to the rest of the games industry," Segerstrale argued that while the nature of the social games business differs significantly from that followed for many years by the more traditional, retail-oriented publishers, times are changing, customers' behaviors and expectations are shifting rapidly, and the winning model may well be the new one.

PlayFish's roster of games, including the mega-hit Who Has the Biggest Brain is illustrative of the popularity games can achieve on services like Facebook. Segerstrale said PlayFish has had 60 million players, averages about 25 million monthly users and 5 million daily players, and currently has 5 of the 10 most popular applications on Facebook. And by itself, Who Has the Biggest Brain has been played a total of 500 million times by 15 million people, he said.

With numbers like that, it's clear why Segerstrale feels he has some lessons to teach the rest of the games industry. And while the traditional retail games model has been relatively unchanged for decades and remains strong today, he said he sees signs that the Electronic Arts, Activisions, and Take-Twos of the world, not to mention the countless other game developers and publishers out there, may need to rethink their methodology.

One harbinger of that need for change is evident even within the traditional games business itself, he pointed out. He said that Nintendo established the Wii as a sleeper hit by exploiting a wide range of people's desire to be social with friends and family. And he explained that Nintendo itself is well aware of this, as evinced by ads for the Wii that show groups of friends playing gleefully. Yet the real estate in the ads devoted to showing the games themselves is minimal; it's the image of the social activity that sells the Wii.

"This is about you and your real-world relationships," Segerstrale said, "which is ultimately much more important than anything that happens between you and your screen...That's why you're playing. You're playing together, not because you're trying to beat the boss in level 10."

In mid-December, Forbes.com concluded that pro skateboarder Tony Hawk is the world's third-most influential athlete, trailing only Tiger Woods and Lance Armstrong.

For those not all that familiar with skateboarding as a sport, this might come as a surprise, given some of the athletes he came in ahead of--football star Peyton Manning, basketball prodigy LeBron James, and NASCAR champion Dale Earnhardt Jr.

But to the millions of people who have played any of the 10 Tony Hawk video games, the Forbes honor surely came as no surprise. After all, those games have become one of the most successful video game franchises of all time, cementing the Hawk legend that began more than 20 years ago on the asphalt of Southern California. He retired from skateboarding nearly 10 years ago at the age of 31.

Skateboarding legend Tony Hawk has a new video game coming out soon, and is helping to promote a charity initiative called Regift the Fruitcake.

(Credit: Tony Hawk)

These days, Hawk, 40, is working on a new iteration of the game franchise, even as he promotes skateboarding and action sports in general, and puts much of his effort into his Tony Hawk Foundation, which has helped build nearly 400 skate parks in disadvantaged communities around the United States.

Hawk, along with celebrities like Nicole Richie, basketball player Yao Ming, and Fall Out Boy, is also promoting a new charity initiative being run by Facebook and PayPal, called Regift the Fruitcake, which hopes to leverage their fame to help raise money for needy causes.

Q: Explain Regift the Fruitcake?
Hawk: Through PayPal and Facebook we're raising awareness of charities and making it possible to spread the word to your friends by sending little videos created by celebrities and athletes, with each of them representing their own charities or the charities that interest them. The idea is that you receive a video and you pass it on and you donate in the process. It's the same idea as when you get a fruitcake for Christmas and you end up giving it away because it's not going to go bad, so to speak.

These are viral videos?
Hawk: They are and each one directs you to a specific charity or cause, and on Facebook and on regifitthefruitcake.com site you can track them and find out how many times they've been sent.

Are you involved in other kinds of viral or social media?
Hawk: I have a Web site called shredordie.com, which is focused on action sports and action sports videos and kids uploading user-generated content. I do a lot of celebrity interviews there, with guys like Lance Armstrong, and Michael Phelps, and Jack Black.

How important is the user-generated content?
Hawk: That's the meat of it. We want kids to come and upload and show off their stuff. It's also a hub for companies looking for talent to sponsor.

You describe yourself as a proud computer geek. How so?
Hawk: Well, beyond shooting my own video clips, editing them, and doing all the effects, I've been into computers since I was a kid. I bought the first Amiga when it came out and then graduated to Macintoshes when I could afford one.

Mac or PC today?
Hawk: Mac.

What is your computer set up?
Hawk: I've got a dual-processor desktop, an iMac in my office and the newest MacBook. Not the MacBook Air, because I wanted a hard drive.

Do you have an iPhone?
Hawk: I have an iPod Touch.

What are your favorite apps?
Hawk: You know, I'm afraid to admit it, but I play a lot of Yahtzee Adventures. My kids love Line Rider, and I play poker and blackjack and Scrabble.

It seems like the iPhone, because of its accelerometer, would be good for skateboarding games?
Hawk: You're absolutely right. I wish I could say more about that, but let's just say that we're going to incorporate that technology into our next game.

So there will be a Tony Hawk iPhone game?
Hawk: Not iPhone.

Will it be for PS3 or Wii?
Hawk: The next game we're doing is for consoles, which will be next year. I get in trouble when I say too much about it, but you're on the right track.

How do you work with Activision on the making of one of your video games?
Hawk: I play it. Basically, we start with an idea and then we start creating it. I'm there every step of the way so that nothing gets decided before it's too late, including things like characters and locations and tricks and challenges. I've actually always been there throughout the process, playing it and making suggestions and just keeping it authentic, because that's the most important thing to me.

How much of challenge is it to keep the games true to skateboarding?
Hawk: That's the thing. When I'm there, it's pretty instinctual. It's actually quite easy because if I see something, I intuitively know if it's legitimate or not, as opposed to seeing it after the fact and going, 'Well, maybe that works.' I go with my gut feeling on all of it.

Can you describe something that would feel legitimate to you versus something that wouldn't?
Hawk: This is something we're working on in our new game. If you're grinding on something, let's say it's a ledge or a rail, and the board is doing it a certain way, that would be a different trick. And some of the challenges that we're running into with the new game we're developing are, let's say, the guy is doing a certain grind and he wants to change to another grind. The body positioning can't be the same. Every grind has a signature body position that you have to get into and that's crucial to keeping it authentic. So you can't just have this guy standing there, just balancing his arms, and suddenly his board goes into a different kind of grind or slide. The real skaters just know that's not real.

So it's important that you be there to help the developers get that right?
Hawk: Yeah, literally last week, that's the exact thing I did. I had a meeting with them and I was talking about how this one grind didn't look right. And then they said, 'What would it look like?' I have a little skate park in my office, and I said, 'Let's go out here,' and we did it, and they shot video for reference and they had it.

Over the years, how has the process changed for you in terms of your involvement with the development of the games?
Hawk: Up until recently, it was easier because the whole development team was familiar with skating. They'd been working on skating games for nearly 10 years, so it wasn't like I had to explain what a switch-crook (a skating move) looks like. They'd just know. So it got a little bit easier, and I became more of an overseer and approving certain aspects of it. Now, I don't want to say we're starting from zero, but we are rebuilding the whole game, so I'm back to being fully immersed at every step of the way so I can make sure it's authentic when it comes out.

But you're not doing any of the development yourself?
Hawk: No, I don't write code.

How has technology changed skateboarding?
Hawk: I think the biggest change is the speed of information and how it travels and how widespread it travels. When you've got videos up on Web sites that are literally shot the same day, the whole skate community knows right away when new tricks are invented, or new techniques are available. Before, it was only through skate magazines, which would come out months after the fact and weren't nearly as widespread. So I feel like there is this sort of global evolution of skating now, whereas before it was very confined to say, Southern California, or just certain parts of the country.

So new moves are spreading right away?
Hawk: A kid in Italy or in Australia can go out and be inspired to learn a brand-new move the same day, and that evolves skating globally as opposed to just in certain geographic areas.

Does that change how skateboarding is seen by the population at large?
Hawk: I think the acceptance has come with the success of things like our video games, or the television coverage skating has received in recent years. It's much more accessible. It's obviously more of a legitimate option for kids, career-wise. And parents are encouraging their kids to skate, and that's really why I started our foundation, because I felt that skating is massively popular. More kids are skating than playing little league now, but they're just not provided for in terms of facilities. So these kids want to do something physical, and positive, yet the only place they can skate is the shopping mall parking lot, or in front of the library, and they're discouraged from doing that. But the same cities that are discouraging them aren't providing facilities for them. So I wanted to help bridge that gap and provide skate parks in low-income cities.

With video games, does it ever reach a point where the technology is at such a high level of realism that there's nowhere else you can go with it? Do you see that happening with skateboarding games?
Hawk: For sure, with our next release. I can guarantee you that it's as close to real skating as you'll ever come.

Among the dominant trends at E3 in Los Angeles this week were music games. Everywhere you looked, publishers were announcing new ones, and players were rocking out to them.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

As planes packed with video game industry people start heading out of Los Angeles in droves after this week's E3 convention, the question is, What really transpired during the confab?

If one thing was clear, it was that the industry largely played it safe this week. Sure, there were a few big announcements--perhaps led by Microsoft's announcement of its planned revamping of the Xbox Live architecture--but for the most part, this was a pretty uneventful E3, an unsurprising reality given that we're a couple of years into the "next-generation" of consoles already and the fact that all the expected big games for the year have long since been announced and previewed and tested and showcased.

There were, of course, some themes that dominated the show, and for anyone who's been paying attention to the industry the last year or so, they shouldn't be surprising.

First, music games are taking off in a very big way. This is hardly shocking, given that Activision's Guitar Hero franchise and its first cousin, Harmonix's Rock Band, have brought in many, many millions of dollars in sales and have turned the industry on its ear.

Now, Activision has a new version of Guitar Hero coming out called Guitar Hero: World Tour, for the Xbox and Sony's PlayStation 3. Among its innovations will be an entirely new guitar controller as well as a drum kit and, more interestingly, a system called Tunes which will allow anyone using the game to create their own all-new music and then upload it to a network where other users can listen to it and rate it. The upshot of this is that there are almost certainly going to be future rock stars emerging from the Tunes community, much the way that some stars have come out of the YouTube world.

Brian Bright of 'Guitar Hero' developer Neversoft demonstrates the Music Studio element of 'Guitar Hero: World Tour' during the Activision press conference Tuesday evening. This is the part of the game that will allow players to create their own music and share it online through what is called the Tunes system.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

But Activision wasn't the only one riding the music wave. Nintendo, too, has jumped on the bandwagon and announced at its press conference on Tuesday that it will be releasing a game called Wii Music that will have some of the same elements of the next Guitar Hero, including the ability to create and share new music. And with the Wii's huge popularity, I think it's safe to say that Wii Music will be a gigantic hit, especially because it's the kind of far-reaching game that will appeal to core gamers and non-gamers alike.

And Rock Band was able to make some waves of its own with announcements of the set list for the forthcoming Rock Band 2, which will include tracks from AC/DC, Bob Dylan, Guns n' Roses and more.

'Resident Evil 5'

Another obvious trend was the emergence of cooperative, or "co-op" play in many games being showcased at E3. Such games included the next Call of Duty,MAG for the PS3, Resident Evil 5, Fable II. As my colleague Dan Ackerman wrote on Crave, "This year's big (E3) buzzword is 'cooperative gameplay'--meaning gamers play together, but are collaborating, rather than competing, to complete the game's goals. This often happens online, where gamers connect via Xbox Live or the PlayStation Network from remote locations."

This is an important trend because it ties gamers together, no matter where they are, making the experience more meaningful for being less of a solo thing. And this, clearly, is the promise of connected play on systems like Xbox Live and, the PlayStation Network.

And it is becoming increasingly obvious that these kinds of innovations are crucial for the industry, especially as Nintendo has proved that it has opened up video gaming to entirely new markets with its Wii.

That success has a clear ripple effect, perhaps best seen in the revamping of Xbox Live, which Microsoft announced Monday morning at the first major press conference of the week.

Xbox Live will feature an entirely new look and feel starting this fall. It will have an avatar motif that reminds many of what Nintendo has done with its hit console, the Wii.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

With the introduction of an avatar-based interface for the new Xbox Live, it was obvious that Microsoft has decided that the mainstream appeal of the Wii is something it wants a part of. Microsoft says that it isn't trying to copy anyone else, and that it is just trying to open up its system to the broadest possible market of consumers. But to anyone watching the industry, it is evident that the Wii was on the minds of the designers of this new architecture. As one commenter on my Xbox press conference story put it, Microsoft's announcement could easily have been called "Mii too," in reference to the Wii avatar system.

Sony, while having the least newsy--at least from this corner--of the week's major press conferences, did still grab a few headlines.

Among those headlines was the announcement--without any promised release date--of God of War III, the follow-up to a very popular franchise; and it also announced that it was going to start offering its 80GB PS3 for $400.

Although it did not announce a publication date, Sony said 'God of War III' would be coming to the PS3.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

For its part, Electronic Arts gave the first glimpse of The Sims 3, the next major iteration of its monstrously-popular franchise. It also unveiled a new system in its next NBA game, NBA Live '09, called "Dynamic DNA," which will incorporate real-life stats on a daily basis in the game. The idea here is that players can see their playing experience change day to day, improving or regressing during the NBA season as the real players go through their year. Those changes will be reflected in the video game in how the digital point guards and power forwards perform on-screen depending on what happens on courts around the country.

But with all that news, there's no question that E3 was really kind of quiet and conservative this year. As I mentioned above, this wasn't a big surprise, but it did make the experience of walking through the halls of the Los Angeles Convention Center feel kind of flat and lacking energy.

This actually is kind of a relief after years at the convention center where being there was completely draining. But if anyone expected to come to Los Angeles this week and have their socks knocked off by the industry's giants, they most certainly did not get what they came for.

The big Tuesday events concluded in the evening with Activision's press conference, where the company was expected to talk much more about the future of 'Guitar Hero' as well as some of its other important franchises.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

LOS ANGELES--When Vivendi Universal announced it was buying Activision last December, it was clearly a bid to compete with Electronic Arts for the top spot on the world's roster of video game publishers.

Well, it's certainly not fair to judge such goals by where companies have their E3 press conferences, but if this year's media events at the video game industry's annual confab are any indication, Activision has a long way to go to catch up with EA.

That's because EA had its press conference at L.A.'s opulent Orpheum theater, and Activision is about to have its own at a much smaller venue that has no particular distinction that I'm aware of. I could, of course, be missing some great history that this building has, but I doubt it.

Regardless, it's not really about venues at all and it is entirely about game lineups and place in the industry, and it is likely that Activision will have some pretty cool things to show when it gets going, hopefully in a few minutes.

Surely, the list of things it will talk about will be heavy with Guitar Hero and Call of Duty.

So please stay tuned to this live blog, as I'll be updating regularly, as I have with the Microsoft, EA, Nintendo and Sony press conferences.

Update 7:29 p.m.: The press conference has begun, and Activision publishing president and CEO Mike Griffith started out by talking about some of his company's performance in the last year.

Among the milestones he mentioned is that since Vivendi bought Activision, the new Activision Blizzard--as the company is now known--is three times as big as the independent company was a year ago.

As far as sales go, Activision is clearly leaning heavily on the Guitar Hero franchise. One example of that is that Griffith said that the Nintendo DS version of the game, Guitar Hero: On Tour has sold 10 times the number of copies any other Activision DS game had sold in the same amount of time on the market.

Further, he said that Guitar Hero users have downloaded more than 18 million songs for the various versions of the game.

Update 7:38 p.m.: Mark Lamia, from Treyarch, the developer of Call of Duty: World at War, is now on-stage to talk about the latest iteration in the hit franchise.

Lamia said that actor Kiefer Sutherland would be one of the voices in the new Call of Duty.

Update 8:16 p.m.: The main event for Activision is clearly Guitar Hero: World Tour, and now Brian Bright from developer Neversoft is up on stage now talking about the game, and its new instruments.

(Credit: Brian Bright of Neversoft shows off the new 'Guitar Hero' guitar during the Activision E3 press conference Tuesday night in Los Angeles.)

First, he's talking about the game's new guitar, which he says is longer, has a directional knob, and now has an accelerometer. It also has a slider on the neck, allowing for much more control over the play of music.

There's also an all-new drum kit, and one of the interesting things about this is that it is possible to plug a professional drum kit into it.

But what I think is the most interesting element of the new game is the so-called Music Studio.

Bright demonstrates the Music Studio element of 'Guitar Hero: World Tour.' This is the part of the game that will allow players to create their own music and then share it online through what is called the Tunes system.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

This is the part of the game that will allow players to create their own music, edit it, save it, and then share it on the Internet.

There are a lot of different parts of this, but one is that it allows players to define a wide range of different kinds, or even styles of instruments, such as British Invasion guitars, or, say, a Metallica guitar.

The studio provides a wide variety of editing and mixing tools, and all of this is built around the idea of uploading songs to what is called Guitar Hero Tunes.

This is, as Bright put it, a mix of YouTube and Billboard, because songs that are uploaded can be ranked by the entire Guitar Hero community.

And this seems sure to be a place where new musical talent is discovered, much as new video talent has come out of the YouTube community.

Further, the Tunes system gives players tools for making their own album covers, all in the guise of more realism and fun and creativity.

All in all, Activision had only a few games to showcase, and notwithstanding the new Guitar Hero, I have to say I was pretty underwhelmed by its offerings, particularly because of the company's place in the video game publishing hierarchy.

But, it all boils down to sales figures, and Guitar Hero: World Tour is sure to bring in many, many millions of dollars. And in the video game business, the bottom line talks.

There are few things that video game publishers--or any consumer products companies, for that matter--like more than reaching big, notable milestones.

So it was with considerable pride that Activision's wholly owned Infinity Ward studio told me Tuesday that its war game, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, has just sold its 10 millionth copy.

Infinity Ward studio head Vince Zampella didn't know exactly how many units the game had sold on each platform it is available on--the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC--but did say that COD 4 had been most successful on the Xbox.

These days, monster hits like Grand Theft Auto IV and Halo 3 have gotten most of the media's attention for best-sellers, but by reaching 10 million sold, there's no doubt that COD 4 deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as any other title.

And to be sure, it's not the only game that has reached 10 million units moved--Infinity Ward said that COD 4 is one of "less than 10" games to do so since 2000--but it's still a notable milestone, especially when you consider that, at a sticker price of $60 a pop, even when considering that you can buy it for less at some retailers, Activision has raked in many hundreds of millions of dollars with the game.

Of course, one wonders how many more copies it would have sold had it been available on Nintendo's Wii. But Zampella said that Infinity Ward decided not to make the game for that console because "it just doesn't fit on the Wii. We thought it would be compromised to be on (that) platform."

Well, with Guitar Hero III, Halo 3, and Grand Theft Auto IV inspiring record-setting sales in their own right, we might easily see a few more games reach the magic 10 million mark soon. And the next Call of Duty, COD 5, which is being produced by Tryarch, not Inifinity Ward, might see even bigger numbers.

Indeed, Zampella acknowledged that COD 4 has set the bar very high for his studio, and it's hard to imagine Infinity Ward being able to come right back with another 10 million-seller.

But, COD 4 still has some juice left. He suggested that the game is still selling, that it's map pack add-on has sold 1.5 million copies, and that the main game itself is expected to sell a lot more copies this holiday season.

True or not, hats off to Infinity Ward on reaching a milestone few ever reach.

On June 10, Geek Gestalt hits the highways for Road Trip 2008. I'll start in Orlando, Fla., and visit many of the South's most interesting destinations. Stay tuned, and be sure to keep up, both now and during the trip, with what I'm doing on Twitter.

I can almost hear the derisive laughter coming from the executive suite at Activision.

This after the video game giant, the publisher of the monster-hit Guitar Hero III, issued a scathing response to a lawsuit brought against it by its former partner, iconic guitar manufacturer Gibson.

Activision responded harshly Thursday to a patent infringement lawsuit brought against it by guitar maker Gibson.

(Credit: Activision)

According to the video game blog, Kotaku, Gibson filed suit against Activision, claiming that it owned a 9-year-old patent for "technology to simulate a musical performance."

In a March 11 filing for declaratory relief (Click for PDF), Activision noted that in a January 7, 2008 letter, Gibson attorneys argued that Guitar Hero infringed on Gibson's patent.

"By continuing to sell any version of the Guitar Hero game software and/or instrument controllers for use with the Guitar Hero game software...Activision is taking advantage of Gibson's patented technology without properly compensating Gibson," the guitar maker's attorneys wrote. "Gibson requests that Activision obtain a license under (the patent) or halt sales of any version of Guitar Hero game software."

But Activision later decided it didn't need a license under Gibson's patent and on March 10 wrote Gibson saying so.

Gibson subsequently sued for patent infringement.

In a press release Thursday, Activision also went public with its assertion that Gibson has nothing on it.

"Gibson's lawsuit is a transparent end run around an impartial court that Activision asked on March 11 to rule on patent assertions that Gibson knows have no merit," Activision wrote in its release. "As Activision noted in its filing, Gibson waited three years to make its patent allegations, and only did so after it became clear that Activision was not interested in renewing its marketing and support agreement with Gibson. Activision continues to believe that Gibson's claims are disingenuous and lack any justification."

To be sure, one would expect language like that from any company in Activision's position. And one would expect a company in Gibson's position to file suit. Because that's how business gets done these days.

But usually, one side or the other in these cases has no real argument, and the courts tend to determine that awfully quickly.

In this case, it is probably too early to tell what the outcome will be.

But as one commenter called VeritasVierge on the Kotaku story put it, "The problem for Gibson is the patent says that the guitar would have strings which the Guitar Hero controllers lack...The idea of recording music and replaying it via a guitar is just to broad an idea to patent."