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Next week’s Call of Duty: Black Ops could set a new benchmark for entertainment launches if it goes one better than last year’s Modern Warfare 2 and once again shatters global entertainment records.
In just a few days we’ll be launching the game that I currently can’t stop playing, that game we call of Call of Duty: Black Ops, which we believe has the potential to be the biggest entertainment launch of the year,” Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg stated .
If it is, this would mark the second consecutive year that the franchise to deliver the largest first-week sale of any entertainment property in any medium. To my knowledge, there’s no other entertainment franchise in history that has done these two years in a row.”
Boss Bobby Kotick went on to outline the growing importance of online to the Call of Duty brand.
We believe that the cumulative hours being played online by our gamers is starting to approach the time audiences spend watching any given television network,” he explained.
As we look ahead, our portfolio is likely to increase in size and breadth, and our core franchises should continue to strengthen. Starting next week with the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops and over the next month with the release of Blizzard Entertainment’s Cataclysm, we’ll be enhancing the online offerings available to our player communities.
Today, audiences want to be connected. They expect games to have a strong social component, and they want the ability to customize and express themselves to their entertainment experiences.”
