Every three months, Activision gives its investors an update on the business via a conference call. Usually it’s dry fiscal info, but sometimes there’s stuff that gamers would find interesting. I sift through the numbers and get to that. This time, here’s the highlights:
It’s all about digital.
Activision Blizzard’s big profits are coming from downloadable games, subscriptions, and DLC. All the games and products on the way — MW3, Call of Duty Elite, Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure — are all online-enabled and focused on digital interaction. Basically, if it doesn’t leverage the power of online and connected players in some way, it’s not currently a focus.
Modern Warfare 3, Call of Duty Elite, and Skylanders are the heavy hitters for the holiday season.
But you knew that. No new info that you would find super interesting was revealed, but Eric Hirshberg did reiterate that the Elite premium membership would include all the MW3 DLC for its price — which is still not revealed.
MW3 is coming to the Wii.
And that’s all that was said, but this is the first time they have confirmed a platform beyond PS3, Xbox 360, and PC. I am hoping to have some info on this on this week’s podcast.
WoW: Cataclysm launched in China, but subs are down slightly.
Mind you, 11.1 million World of Warcraft players is still nothing to sneeze at (down from the upper range of 11 million and change), but “subscribership seems to be seasonal and driven by content updates,” said Blizzard’s Mike Morhaime. He felt the decline was normal and noted that more end-game content is in the works to keep players happy and active. He also suggested that, following the success in China, Brazil might be a place to expand WoW’s player base.
Diablo III will be ready when it’s ready.
Mike Morhaime said the game is heading into beta in Q3, and it will include an auction house for virtual goods that players will buy with real funds. This is very new for them, so until they are sure they can make everything work right, they are not promising a release date on the product. That could be 2011, but personally, it sounds like they are leaving the 2012 door very open.
Cabela’s Hunting Party was confirmed for Kinect.
This actually did not come up on the call, but was buried in the investor call press release. This is different from Cabela’s Big Game Hunter 2012 and Cabela’s Survival: Shadows of Katmai, so we’re looking at three Cabela’s titles this year. A mention was made of a new peripheral, but no details were offered — I wonder if it’s a “Kinect gun” or something.
That’s all that I think mattered. I’ll keep you posted here if something else comes up later, and update this accordingly.
