COD:Modern Warfare 2 estimations in 2009: 4.7 million copies coming it at 310 million dollars
COD:Black Ops estimations in 2010: 5.6 million copies coming in at $360 million dollars.

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Nov. 11, 2010 /PRNewswire/ — Shattering its own day-one sales record, Activision Publishing, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) announced that Treyarch’s highly-anticipated Call of Duty®: Black Ops has become the biggest entertainment launch ever with an estimated sell-through of approximately $360 million in North America and the United Kingdom alone in the first 24 hours of its release, as compared to last year’s estimated day-one sell-through of $310 million for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare® 2 in North America and the United Kingdom, according to internal Activision estimates.

Call of Duty: Black Ops, marks the second year in a row that the Call of Duty franchise has set day one launch records across all forms of entertainment. In its first day on November 9, the blockbuster title sold through approximately 5.6 million copies in North America and the United Kingdom, as compared to 4.7 million copies for last year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, according to internal Activision estimates.

Call of Duty: Black Ops is one of the most critically acclaimed games of the year worldwide and was released with unprecedented retailer support and more than 12,000 midnight openings around the globe.

“There has never been another entertainment franchise that has set opening day records for two consecutive years and we are on track to outperform last year’s five-day global sales record of $550 million,” said Bobby Kotick, CEO, Activision Blizzard, Inc. “The game’s success underscores the pop culture appeal of the brand. Call of Duty: Black Ops is the finest game that Treyarch has ever made and raises the bar for online gameplay by delivering the deepest and most intense Call of Duty experience yet. The Call of Duty franchise has over 25 million players around the world that are engaged in billions of hours of online gameplay, and we are committed to supporting them with new content and features on a more frequent and regular basis.”

Source: http://investor.activision.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=529609

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It appears Activision Blizzard is considering a potentially controversial new way to generate revenue. During yesterday’s quarterly conference call, CEO Bobby Kotick hinted that the Call of Duty franchise will head the way of World of Warcraft and become subscription-based.

Activision Blizzard acts as the publisher of the Call of Duty games developed alternately by Infinity Ward and Treyarch. Though the franchise’s latest installment, Modern Warfare 2, was the best-selling video game of 2009 and generated more than $1 billion in revenue according to the NPD Group, Activision Blizzard still reported a $286 million loss in its fiscal fourth quarter. The loss was due, in large part, to the bottom falling out of the Guitar Hero franchise.

Conversely, Blizzard’s World of Warcraft franchise continues to be a cash cow for Activision, raking in $15 subscription fees from a reported 11.5 million people every month.

Put the pieces together and you can understand the company’s thinking: a financial loss, an enormously popular franchise, and a proven subscription model that generates a river of revenue. Kotick described the future of Call of Duty this way:

If you think about the success that we’ve had in other product categories on subscription, you can get a sense of the direction that we want to take that franchise.

World of Call of Duty? Subscription fees on the game’s online multiplayer? Kotick had nothing else to say on the matter, though the company did confirm that the next installment in the series is due out late this year.

If this subscription model does actually get applied; especially on the next installment of COD by Treyarch due out later this year, it will for sure be the killer of the Call of Duty series – especially after the blow that COD:MW2 did to the “true” COD community. The WOW community is a very different group of individuals than the COD community and a subscription based model for a FPS game like COD will only rid the game of the true players and leave the kiddies and casual gamers that feed off of their mom and dads bank account left to play.

Could this be the final stab in the heart of the COD gaming community minority?

Source: http://videogames.yahoo.com/news-1389056

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