'Spolsion Man, one or our absolute favorites of 2009, enjoyed a surprise sales surge last week, rocketing to the top of the Xbox Live Arcade bestseller list. That's the power of Black Friday and a one-day, 75-percent discount.
In fact, thirteen of the top twenty bestsellers for the week of November 22 were on sale for at least part of the period, and the only discounted XBLA title not to chart was poor Voodoo Dice. Amidst the apparently too-good-to-refuse deals, Crazy Taxi made a strong debut in the number six position in its first week of release, and Pac-Man CE DX ate up a top-ten spot in its second week of availability.
As for Xbox Live activity, Black Ops recruits and Modern Warfare 2 veterans (who aren't about to surrender that easily) continue to hog the most bandwidth, followed by the Reach faithful and -- watch out for that Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood sneaking up the activity chart! Speaking of no surrender, how about World of War and Call of Duty 4 (remember that one?) hanging around the top twenty most-played Xbox Live games? No wonder Activision wants to better tap its gold mine next year.
Both Top Twenty charts are posted in full after the break.
#xbox360
The two most-played games on Xbox Live are Call of Duty games, with Halo Reach in the third spot, according to the first Xbox Live popularity ranking released after several data-free weeks from Microsoft. More »
#screengrab
Was it really a year ago that Modern Warfare 2 was the it-release, and its night vision goggles were the opulent special edition premium. This cake doesn't celebrate that anniversary, it's for "stepTOF," from his girlfriend. Sent in by TEAMCHINA. More »
#clips
Can you actually activate a nuke in Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer in about half a minute? There's been debate about that and admissions of fakery. But this video, newly re-posted to YouTube shows a purportedly legit 32-second nuke. Look legit? More »
If there are a few installments in the ever-lucrative Call of Duty franchise that you, unlike every other human being alive on planet Earth, failed to purchase at launch, today's a good day to play catch up. Amazon's Lightning Deals are currently marking down prices on a bunch of installments on the shooter series, while the Deal of the Day is a discount on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, currently available for $36.99 on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.
Click past the jump for all the hints for the remaining Lightning Deals, which your considerable brainpower (and prior knowledge that it's a Call of Duty game) should make quick work of.
#deals
War never changes, but the price of war does. Amazon.com is lowering the prices on war games all day long, with a strong focus on Call of Duty. More »
First Xbox Live Marketplace -- now Steam is offering a fire sale on all Modern Warfare 2 DLC "inventory." Hmm ... that must mean there's a new Call of Duty coming out soon ...
Are there still a few multiplayer maps in Modern Warfare 2 which you've yet to decorate with your own bullet-splattered blood? You might want to look into this week's Xbox Live Marketplace deal: The Stimulus Pack and the Resurgence Pack are half-price this week, available at 600 Microsoft Points.
Is there anything worse than succumbing to the grenade launcher -- AKA the dreaded noob tube -- in Modern Warfare 2? Several scientific studies (not really) have shown that there is not. And yet, Infinity Ward's Robert "fourzerotwo" Bowling has agreed to do just that. As part of an Extra Life charity gaming marathon supporting Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, Bowling has agreed to a match of Modern Warfare 2 with Pixel Enemy's BrassMonkeigh. Furthermore, Bowling will actually allow himself to be noob tubed during said match.
Bowling is hoping to raise $5,000 with his marathon, with users contributing $1 for each of the 24 hours he will be playing various games. With a degrading noob tubing on the table, we can only hope he reaches his goal. If you're interested in setting up your own charity marathon (with or without celebrity pwning), head over to the Extra Life charity website.
#callofduty
Call of Duty is no stranger to Hollywood. While a couple of big time movie stars are going to do voice work in the upcoming Black Ops, this is far from a first for the series. More »
The problem with Pokemon is that it's pretty embarrassing to tell people you play it, especially if you're over the age of 13 -- just ask Griffin. They're great games, don't get us wrong. It's just that we're adults, with actual utility bills and Netflix memberships, and alive and breathing significant others. We can't risk losing all of that.
That's why we want to draw your attention to this Call of Duty and Pokemon mash-up clip, available just past the break. By incorporating the two, we can maintain our adult facade, while enjoying the deep and robust RPG experience Nintendo's line of games offers without all the kiddie stuff. It's the best of both worlds!
#pokemon
Who needs Bulbasaur when you can fight with Ghost? Who needs pocket monsters in your Pokemon game when you can have the heroes of Call of Duty take turns slashing and poisoning? One amazing video depicts the unreal Pokémon: Modern Warfare. More »
#modernwarfare
And I don't mean in singleplayer. I mean multiplayer. Because Glen McCracken is doing just that, trying to reach the maximum level 70 in multiplayer without killing a soul. More »
#clips
War has changed. Where once the stars of Modern Warfare and Metal Gear fought mercenaries and other bad men, today they are taking on...internet memes. More »
#britain
Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training on the DS used to the biggest-selling video game of all time in the United Kingdom. It no longer holds that title. More »
#modernwarfare
Infinity Ward founders and Modern Warfare creators Vince Zampella and Jason West may have formed a new games studio, but don't go expecting anything from them for a long time. They're too busy...buying furniture. More »
#clips
Doom was released in 1993, so most guns in the game that didn't have the word *crag*ing in the middle of them are looking a little antiquated by now. More »
#bugs
The Xbox 360 version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has had a curious side effect on a handful of Live Arcade games. Infinity Ward's modern military shooter is unlocking the full versions of five SNK games for free. More »
In a stroke of exceptionally bad luck for SNK, a glitch has been discovered that unlocks free access to the full versions of five of the publisher's XBLA games for users who already have the demos on their hard drives. To make it worse, the glitch occurs within Modern Warfare 2 (a game that bajillons of Xbox 360 owners already have) -- or its recent demo (which is freely available).
Somehow, running Modern Warfare 2 coincidentally fools the system into thinking it's authorized to temporarily unlock full versions of Garou: Mark of the Wolves, The King of Fighters '98 Ultimate Match, Metal Slug 3, Metal Slug XX, and Samurai Shodown II. Joystiq tested the exploit with Garou and KOF '98, and can verify that it works. For now, at least.
We're certain this issue will be patched by one of the three affected parties -- SNK Playmore, Activision, or Microsoft -- in the near future, now that it's known. In the meantime, just because you can get these games for free doesn't mean you aren't a major jerk for doing so.
StarCraft 2 took a slide down the charts this week to fourth, as Toy Story 3 regained the top spot on the UK All Formats chart. There also appears to have been some promotion (the demo, perhaps?) in the region last week for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 because it surged up the charts from eighth to second. According to Chart-Track, Activision-Blizzard's Modern Warfare sequel could potentially overtake Dr Kawashima (aka Brain Age) as the UK's "biggest unit seller" next week.
Dance on Broadway, Ubisoft's pseudo-sequel to Just Dance (holding just fine at #6), knows that life is a cabaret and moves up another spot to third. The other chart-topping stalwart, Red Dead Redemption, drops to fifth -- its lowest position since launch. Check out the UK top ten after the break.
Activision has released its financial results for the second quarter of 2010, reporting revenues of $967 million. That's down from $1,038 reported during the same period last year. Net income is up, however, with the company reporting earnings of $219 million, a 12 percent increase over last year's $195 million. Before you get too confused, know that costs were down dramatically, dropping from $820 million in Q2 2009 to $667 million this year, which led to the increased income.
The driver behind Activision's results, according to CEO Bobby Kotick, was "strong consumer response" to the company's workhorse brands, World of Warcraft and Call of Duty. The report also mentions that Activision's digital sales "exceeded retail sales for the first time," having grown more than 20 percent year over year. Somehow, we're not terribly surprised.
Looking forward, Kotick pointed to StarCraft 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops and the World of Warcraft expansion Cataclysm as potential bright spots for the rest of the year. Specifically, Kotick noted that Black Ops pre-orders are already outpacing the number of Modern Warfare 2 pre-orders at this time last year.
Doesn't matter if the game was originally released in fall 2009, the single player demo has finally hit both Xbox LIVE and the PlayStation Network. If you weren't one of the 20 million who bought the game, check it out. More »
As you are the sole Xbox 360 owner who has yet to play Modern Warfare 2, we would like to inform you that a demo is now available on Xbox Live Marketplace.
Cheers,
P.S. A reminder for little Rosie Erickson: A PS3 demo is available as well.
Xbox.com: Add Modern Warfare 2 Cliffhanger Demo to your Xbox 360 download queue
#demo
In case you've been trying to decide whether or not to buy Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 for the past nine months, Activision has released a single-player demo on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live to help you decide. More »
#pullquote
Author Nicholson Baker never played a video game until he tried some violent Xbox ones with his 16-year-old son for an article in this week's New Yorker magazine. As heard on the magazine's podcast. More »
#callofduty
Complain about the cost of Call of Duty map packs all you want; it doesn't stop Activision charging a ton for them, and it's certainly not stopping people from buying them. More »
The anti-cheating software embedded in Valve's Steamworks platform recently took on a mind of its own, banning over 12,000 non-cheating Modern Warfare 2 players over the past two weeks. The cause for its insatiable ban lust? Valve president Gabe Newell explained in an email to those affected, "the problem was that Steam would fail a signature check between the disk version of a DLL and a latent memory version." See, we were just thinking that that had something to do with it.
Newell begged pardon for the erroneous bans, adding "this was our mistake, and I apologize for any frustration or angst it may have caused you." An apology and a swift reversal of the ban aren't all that these users will receive -- Newell promised a giftable copy of Left 4 Dead 2 to all those affected, as well as one copy for themselves, provided they don't already have it.
