Activision To Spend More On Black Ops Than MW2, Declares War On Pre-owned Games And Shows Profit In Q2

It looks like even though MW2 was probably one of the biggest games for Activision, they will spend more money on Black Ops, despite the fact that it will probobaly not out-sell MW2.

According to Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, Black Ops will be the “biggest ever investment” in a title.

“This [is] across the board, the biggest investment that we’ve ever made in a launch of a title. And I think when audiences see the product, they’ll see why we’re doing it this way.” he said.

“But the market opportunity is bigger than it’s ever been. The installed base of hardware is bigger than it’s ever been. The product has incredibly broad appeal, but it also has a whole host of functions that are going to be unique to the core consumer. ”

“And from that perspective, we feel like it’s the most appropriate Activision product to put these kinds of resources behind. And I think there’s a lot of competition, not just from games but from a whole host of other things that you can do with your leisure times. ” he added.

“And this is something that we think has the potential to break through and appeal to a much broader consumer base than ever before.”

Activision also showed their profits for Q2 of 2010.

Activision rose 12 per cent to $219 million (£138m), while the firm actually reported a seven per cent drop in revenues to $1 billion (£607m).

“Our quarterly results were fuelled by continued strong consumer response to Activision Publishing’s Call Of Duty franchise and Blizzard Entertainment’s World Of Warcraft,” said Bobby Kotick.

“Looking to the balance of the year, we expect to release the best slate in our company’s history. Blizzard Entertainment’s StarCraft II: Wings Of Liberty is off to a strong start worldwide… We are, of course, enthusiastic about Blizzard Entertainment’s upcoming release of World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm, which began a closed beta test on June 30.”

“Call Of Duty: Black Ops is shaping up to be one of the best games Activision Publishing has ever created, the marketing programs are the biggest in the company’s history and to date, pre-orders of the game exceed the pre-orders for Modern Warfare 2 at this time last year,” he added.

Activison also joined the war effort against used game sales, saying that, “We are still evaluating various possibilities for greater participation in the used-games business. What’s been working the best so far is providing additional content and therefore limiting the supply to used games.”

“So that’s a proven strategy that we will continue. And any other initiatives, we will be talking about when we get closer to it.”

“Today [we have] more resources than ever dedicated to creating additional content for Call of Duty, whether that’s map packs, whether that’s game modes and the whole host of new [downloadable] features that we’re going to talk about when we get close to the launch of Black Ops.”

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