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.
Uh-oh.
For all the champagne toasts that are no doubt going on over at Take-Two Interactive and its subsidiary Rockstar Games over the grand launch day of Grand Theft Auto IV, there's a bit of a dark cloud brewing.
According to a post on CNET News.com sister site GameSpot, there's a brouhaha afoot in GTA IV forums all over the Internet because of some players' complaints that the game is freezing up on them.
As GameSpot's Brendan Sinclair points out, it was only a month ago that another one of Rockstar's games, Bully had freezing-up problems. Now, with reports of crashes with GTA IV, mostly on the PlayStation 3, but also on the Xbox 360, one has to wonder if perhaps there's someone in Rockstar's QA department that's not doing their job.
Other recent hit games, of course, have also had quality problems. You might recall that some players of Guitar Hero III had problems with their guitar controllers.
So one thing that will certainly help Take-Two and Rockstar get through this relatively unscathed--assuming the reports of GTA IV freezing up are real--is if they react quickly and solve the problem and reach out to their users. If they don't, it won't look good.
Who'd have thought a guitar game could help one of the world's biggest video game companies double its earnings?
That's what happened though, as demonstrated by Activision's third-quarter earnings, which it reported Thursday afternoon.
According to the company, which was recently bought by communications giant Vivendi, Activision brought in third-quarter profits of $272.2 million, nearly twice its profits of $142.8 million from the same quarter a year ago.
Why?
Well, it's clear that a huge part of it is massive sales of the company's explosive hit, Guitar Hero III.
Other games, too, most notably, Call of Duty 4, played a role. But it's surely the millions of people out there "strumming" on plastic guitars that really put the oomph in Activision's bottom line during the third quarter.
I got a hilarious e-mail this morning from video game giant Activision touting the tremendous sales of the latest iteration of its hit franchise, Guitar Hero.
The subject line of the e-mail began, "Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock earns $115 in first week."
After I got through blinking a few times to make sure I was reading it right--I was--I looked into the body of the e-mail and saw that, yes, the company had left out a rather meaningful word: "million."
'Guitar Hero III' netted opening week sales of $115 million, the biggest first week in Activision's history.
(Credit: Activision)So, no, Guitar Hero III didn't sell two copies in its first week. It actually did rather spectacularly, netting the highest opening-week sales for any game in Activision's history, with a total of $115 million in revenues.
That's not bad, though it does pale slightly in comparison to the opening day sales of $170 million for Halo 3, a statistic that Microsoft touted as the single-biggest opening day in entertainment history.
Whatever. It's pretty clear that Guitar Hero III did pretty well, and kudos to Activision, RedOctane--the Activision-owned studio that published the game--and Neversoft, the developers, for that.
I interviewed Dusty Welch, RedOctane's head of publishing today, and the Q&A will be posted within a few days. Please stay tuned for some interesting reading about Welch's thoughts on Guitar Hero's heritage, its future, its place in the market, and lots more.
If you're one of the millions of people who have shed your dignity to rock out to Guitar Hero and you've been waiting to find out what songs would be included in Harmonix Music System's forthcoming Rock Band, wait no more. I've got you covered.
(Credit:
Amazon)
We're talking dozens of hit songs here, and mostly not the sound-alike covers included in many of these kinds of games.
The track list starts with the Rolling Stones' Gimme Shelter, continues on with David Bowie's Suffragette City, the Clash's Should I Stay or Should I Go, Metallica's Enter Sandman, R.E.M.'s Orange Crush, Radiohead's Creep, and many others.
All told, the game will include 58 songs, most of which are the original versions.
Rock Band is slated for release on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on November 20, and for PlayStation 2 on December 18. And with Guitar Hero III just now hitting the market, be prepared for bars all over the world to be taken over by a new round of head-banging air guitarists whaling away on OK Go's Here it Goes Again.
God help us.
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