Entertainment Electronics Blog

Modern Warfare 3 will be followed by a return to the cold war in Black Ops 2, if an Amazon.fr listing is accurate.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 has been listed on the french portal for Amazon, sparking further speculation over Call of Duty 9.

Call of Duty 2012 is widely expected to be a Treyarch project, which last made CoD: Black Ops, which launched in 2010.

The Amazon.fr listing is still cached on google – but doesn’t feature any details other than the name. We’ve included a picture below.

Is this the next Call of Duty? Will you be happy to step back into the shoes of Black Ops’ covert soldiers? Have your say in our comments section, below.

• Call Of Duty 2012 ‘Will Innovate, Looks Fantastic’ – Activision

• Call of Duty: Treyarch Refutes Iron Wolf Website Links

• Call Of Duty Headed For Next-Gen – Job Ad

MW3 DLC maps headed to PS3 via CoD Elite this month.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 gets its first DLC content for PS3 on 28 February.

Activision has announced the start of the nine-month content season for MW3 on PS3 after the Liberation and Piazza maps dropped for Xbox 360 (via CoD Elite) at the end of January.

Liberation and Piazza will now be available for all Call of Duty Elite subscribers from 28 February, in line with Activision’s Xbox Live exclusivity agreement.

Modern Warfare 3 DLC release dates for PS3, PC up in the air.

Modern Warfare 3’s first DLC has been dated for 24 January – but so far only for Call of Duty Elite members on Xbox 360.

Release dates for PS3, PC have yet to be revealed – when we asked  Activision for more details it told us it currently had “no further information”.

Microsoft has a long association of exclusivity periods with Activision for Call of Duty DLC, but with paying Call of Duty Elite customers expecting early access to content on Xbox 360 and PS3, some may feel that Activision hasn’t lived up to previous promises – if the DLC launches earlier on Xbox Live.

Exclusivity has traditionally lasted on Xbox Live for a month for past DLC packs.

Activision releases first official image of Park map, while, other MW3 DLC screens head online.

Modern Warfare 3’s first DLC pack will arrive on 24 January as announced by Activision via Call of Duty Elite yesterday, but now the very first image of new map ‘Park’ has been revealed, showing a Central Park-style location.

The MW3 map doesn’t look too dissimilar to Battlefield 3’s Operation Metro map, which combined the landscape of a Parisian park with urban sections.

Mean while an MW3 fansite has also sourced what appear to be static screens for the other rumoured maps Overwatch, Morningwood and Italy.

The Modrn Warfare 3 DLC map names were thought to have leaked last month.

The first MW3 DLC will hit Xbox 360 – Activision told us yesterday it currently has no details on DLC releases for other platforms.

MW3 generates $1 billion in little over two weeks.

Modern Warfare 3 passed the $1 billion sales mark after 16 days, Activision has revealed – one day quicker than James Cameron’s record-breaking Avatar made $1 billion at the worldwide box office.

“Engagement of our Call of Duty audience continues to rise around the world” said Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick. “Call of Duty as an entertainment franchise has made an indelible mark on popular culture and its broad and continued success is further validation that audiences increasingly value interactive experiences over passive experiences.”

MW3 launched on 8 November worldwide and made over three-quarters of that billion dollars at launch, according to an earlier Activision announcement.

Modern Warfare 3’s run at the top of the UK chart was ended by Skyrim today.

Star Wars: The Old Republic will have no impact on World of Warcraft’s success, but Blizzard has its own problems to worry about, says analyst Jesse Divnich.

Star Wars: The Old Republic isn’t far away, but it is unlikely to cause a dent in World of Warcraft’s success after launch. Any dip in subscriber figures is likely down to WoW’s own problems, and not BioWare’s MMO, according to EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich.

Divnich explained, “I don’t believe the potential success of Star Wars is a detriment to World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft has its own internal battles to contend with, such as their declining subscription based, which has nothing to do with Star Wars and more to do with the natural cycle of MMOs.”

Divnich also stated that while many are likely to assume that Star Wars: The Old Republic will affect WoW in a big way, that they should maybe think twice.

“I don’t believe Star Wars will have a material impact on WoW, but given that we are approaching the downslope of the WoW cycle, it is likely many will attribute Star Wars: The Old Republic for the downfall of WoW, which of course is wrong.”

Recently, Activision’s Bobby Kotick stated that he failed to see Star Wars: The Old Republic making a profit. Divnich shed some like on Kotick’s opinion.

“Bobby has some great points, all of which are valid, but I don’t think he is giving EA enough credit on Star Wars: The Old Republic. The MMO category is a $5 billion business, and WoW only receives a fraction of that, which is about $900 million annually.”

“This is a big sand box my friends, big enough for both Activision and EA to play in.”

Want more Star Wars: The Old Republic news?

• ‘Star Wars: The Old Republic $15 Million Profit A Month’ – Pachter
• ‘Star Wars: The Old Republic To Convert 500,000 World Of Warcraft Players’ – Pachter

LucasArts set to clean up says Activision Blizzard boss.

Star Wars MMORPG The Old Republic will be more of a money-spinner for licensor LucasArts rather than publisher/developer EA, according to rival and Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick.

“Lucas is going to be the principal beneficiary of the success of Star Wars,” Kotick told Reuters. “We’ve been in business with Lucas for a long time and the economics will always accrue to the benefit of Lucas, so I don’t really understand how the economics work for Electronic Arts.”

Activision has previously co-published numerous Star Wars games such as entries in the Jedi Knight and Republic Commando series’.

“If you look at the history of the people investing in an MMO and achieving success, it’s a small number,” Kotick warned.

Although no payment model has yet been confirmed for SWTOR, EA is widely expected to employ the traditional MMO model of a montly or annual subscription.

The publisher has previously said it would be profitable with just half a million players.

Blizzard’s World of Warcraft has dominated the subscription MMO space for years, but recently dropped 800,000 players while rivals have switched to free-to-play models.

Given the commitment in terms of both time and cost, analysts have suggested that Star Wars: The Old Republic could steal players away from WoW when it launches on 20 December.

CoD: Elite stats on-the-go incoming.

Call of Duty: Elite may have endured a problematic launch, but things seem to be improving for Activision and Beachhead now with the service now granted ‘operational’ status, and a huge clan creation/customisation FAQ suggesting things are on the mend.

Now Daniel Suarez, vice president of production at Activision has confirmed the service will be solid over the weekend, and that the Call of Duty: Elite mobile apps will be available next week.

“Every week, we have progressively improved,” Suarez said in an interview. “Everything is now up and running.”

Activision has also begun offering competitions on CoD: Elite – the publisher recently revealed that over a million paid subscribers signed up for the service in the six days after launch.

Games criticised more than movies says Activision boss.

Modern Warfare 3 is unfairly thought of as controversial, while movies such as The Hurt Locker are revered as art, thinks Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg.

“There’s a sense that games are more exploitive in a way that The Hurt Locker – which also was designed as form of entertainment – isn’t,” he said via Kotaku.

Hirshberg said that he views games as an art form, and they should be able to tackle the same subject matter as movies.

“I think that ‘too soon’ criteria is not applied to things like Green Zone. Or United 93. There will be a time when we look back and find it quaint that video games were so controversial. I think the active ingredient to changing that attitude is time.”

Modern Warfare 3 is officially record-breaking – but the game’s controversial content hasn’t gone unnoticed.

Despite a tweet sent out suggesting otherwise, Call of Duty Elite is still coming to PC — we just don’t know when.

The service’s first week (it launched alongside Modern Warfare 3 last Tuesday) has hardly been what Activision, Beachhead, and all the rest involved with its creation could have been hoping for. Overwhelming demand resulted in a variety of issues as users found themselves unable to register, log in, or access some of the Founder perks they paid for. To make up for the mess, paying members (including anyone who signs up by the end of the month) will get an additional month of access to Elite on top of the year they paid $49.99 for. Those members are exclusively console players right now, however, as Elite has yet to be made available on PC.