After introducing the Call of Duty app for smartphones and tablets, Activision has made the decision to ice Call of Duty: Elite. As a social network for the franchise, it began as a premium service with the launch of Modern Warfare 3 and eventually went free with Black Ops 2’s release. Elite will be going down at 10 AM PST on February 28th.

Activision isn’t forgetting those who made the service what it was though. It will be offering all soon-to-be former members two hours of double XP time, provided you’ve been an Elite member since January 1st 2014. Players can expect to see the reward arriving on profiles “soon”.

One wonders if that will be the fate of Battlefield’s Premium service, which Call of Duty attempted to ape with Elite, especially given the delays in DLC and continuing problems. What do you think about Elite shutting down? Let us know below.

Second is Call of Duty Elite TV which delivers a renewed community focus, featuring tips on loadouts and playstyles, strategies on the best ways to play the maps, and more. There will be three new Call of Duty Academy shows to help players including “Create-a-Class Guide”, “Multiplayer Guide” and Tutorials for educating players on new features like Livestreaming, CODcasting, Leagues, and the “Pick 10” create-a-class system.

Third, Zombies. You can now track Zombies stats and compare them with players worldwide for bragging rights.

Fourth is the overall tracking and managing of communications, challenges and classes. You’ll have better communication with clans, improved access to Clan Ops and Challenges and One Button Class Copy for automatically taking another member’s loadout.

Finally, there’s accessibility. No matter where you are, Call of Duty Elite is accessible, as evidenced by the recent launch of the smartphone app.

The Call of Duty Elite application for iOS and Android devices now supports the recently released Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. You can now use the app to check your all your Black Ops 2 stats- your career stats, you can search for Clans and apply to them, you can edit a Class, you can check your recent match performances, and much more.

If you’re used this app before in conjunction with last year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, you will be familiar with what you’re getting into- it’s basically entirely the same stuff, but with Black Ops 2 instead of last year’s CoD installment.

The Call of Duty Elite Apps runs on all iOS devices that support iOS 5 or higher, but it does not support iPhone 5’s screen. The app runs on any and all Android based devices, though.

Black Ops 2 managed to sell 1 million units during midnight launches at GameStop stores alone. Stay tuned for more numbers.

The bad news? Wii U users won’t have that luxury. In fact, Call of Duty Elite won’t be available for the Wii U edition of Treyarch’s premier first person shooter.

Speaking to Kotaku, an Activision representative stated that, “We are currently evaluating options for Call of Duty Elite to support Nintendo’s Wii U game system, however Call of Duty Elite for Call of Duty: Black Ops II will not support this platform when the game launches on November 13th.”

Multiplayer isn’t really the Nintendo Wii’s biggest market of revenue and it’s doubtful that the Wii U will significantly change this. And considering its target audience, we doubt most people will miss it but still, damn you Activision!

Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg stated, “We’ve learned a lot in our first year of Call of Duty Elite, and we’re very proud that we over delivered on our commitment of playable content to our premium members. What we have realised is that several of the Call of Duty Elite services which are currently only available to our premium members for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 are things that would further unite, engage and delight our player community. So we are going to make them free for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.”

So you’ll now be able to track game states, challenges, modify classes, start clans, compare the number of zombies killed and much, much more. This includes Call of Duty Elite TV, which provides developer tips along with overviews on custom classes.

Call of Duty Elite has 12 million subscriptions and out of that 2.3 million people actually pay for it. The service was created with an intent to find new alternate revenue streams and it has been a successful venture for Activision, when you take into account that this service was announced last year along with Modern Warfare 2.

The service offers gamers 20+ new multiplayer maps, Special Ops missions and more before normal peasants. It also offers stat tracking and other cool features which is really helpful if you are into creating specialized videos for Youtube.

The data was announced during Activision financials today, where the company posted a $1 billion revenue slightly down from last year.

We are very excited to have announced our expanded investment in China through Activision Publishing’s agreement with Tencent to bring the Call of Duty franchise to the Chinese market,” Bobby Kotick said at the investor call.

“For the first six months, we had the top three best-selling games in North America and Europe with Activision Publishing’s Skylanders Spyro’s Adventures and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, and Blizzard Entertainment’s record setting Diablo III.”

Diablo 3 has sold 8.8 million copies so far, along with 1.2 million players who got the game due to owning a World of Warcraft subscription. There are 9 million WoW subscribers now down by a whopping 1 million from last quarter.

Thanks IGN for Elite stats.

Developed from the ground up by Activision’s new Beachhead studio, Call of Duty Elite offers cutting-edge features that significantly enhance the franchises’ multiplayer experience and deliver a new level of social engagement that will unite more than 30 million players worldwide. Additionally, the service will offer exclusive, high-production value, original entertainment programming designed exclusively for the Call of Duty community.

Call of Duty Elite will include several industry-first innovations, and is a key differentiator for this year’s most anticipated game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Elite will offer two-way communication between the service and the game, so that the choices and decisions that players make in Elite through the mobile and web interfaces will affect their in-game experience.

Get your Call of Duty ELITE Clan prepared for Clan Operations and learn about prizing, Clan XP, Clan Showcase and more in this video walkthrough.

Call of Duty: Elite was revealed last year along with Modern Warfare 3 and has been successful for Activision.

Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3’s Content Season for Call of Duty Elite Premium Members has started on the PlayStation Network with today’s release of the first two content drops – Liberation and Piazza.

Call of Duty Elite Drop 1: Liberation, a militarised Central Park in the heart of NYC, features a vast landscape ripe for long-range sniper and LMG kills. Mounted turrets on opposing ends of the map offer overwhelming firepower to anyone brave enough to man them. Elite Drop 2: Piazza, set in an idyllic Italian seaside village getaway gone rogue, offers blind corners and a complex network of branching pathways that pose danger at every turn. Visceral close-quarters combat dominates in Piazza, and attacks from above and below are an ever-constant threat.

Stay tuned to GB for more news and updates.

Activision has announced a new map pack for Call of Duty Elite. The new map, called Overwatch,  is a frantic multi-floor-frag-fest 70 stories up with views to match.

Live the good life on a New York high-rise and dominate all who come against you in the all new vertigo inducing environment; rule the world from the highest multiplayer map Call of Duty has ever seen.

Overwatch, the new Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer map, is available 21^st February on Xbox Live for Call of Duty ELITE Premium members. Premium Call of Duty ELITE members receive new Call of Duty: MW3 content every month of the season for their platform for nine months. Non-premium Call of Duty ELITE members can still look forward to new content with Modern Warfare 3 Content Collections, including maps, modes and other features previously released through content drops.