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With Activision's holiday fiscal report expected to release this week, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter is predicting that the Call of Duty profit machine may not repeat its fantastic 2009 performance this year. As reported by IndustryGamers, Pachter believes the Call of Duty franchise will generate "sharply lower revenue," in 2010, to the tune of a $250 million decline. Not to worry, though, as he notes that Activision is likely to more than make up for that amount thanks to Blizzard's impending releases (hello, StarCraft II). Aside from that, of course, it's important to remember that we're talking about a $250 million decrease on almost a billion dollars, so it's not like Pachter expects Call of Duty to wind up in the toilet.

It's worth noting that the previous Call of Duty title, World at War, initially outsold Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, though Modern Warfare remained on top after the dust settled. Unsurprisingly to anyone paying attention, Modern Warfare 2 turned around to outsell the original Modern Warfare. Still, all three remain among the best selling games of all time, so maybe it's okay if the next one is only phenomenally successful.

Activision is continuing to help military veterans through its Call of Duty Endowment (C.O.D.E.), and, in a way, so are the patrons of its mega-popular war franchise. Today, C.O.D.E. announced that it will be giving $100,000 to the Wounded Warrior Project, for the purpose of establishing a fifth Transition Training Academy where injured veterans can receive training and pursue a career in information technology.

Last November, the publisher pledged $1 million from sales of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 towards programs aiding military personnel in their return to civilian life, having made an initial donation of $125,000 to Paralyzed Veterans of America in the fall.

Activision's Guitar Hero business unit has a new boss, who's not the same as the old boss -- former COO David Haddad is taking over the post after CEO Dan Rosensweig left the company. Haddad was the head of Vivendi's Sierra Online division back in the day, but started working with the Guitar Hero group after Activision merged with Viviendi back in 2007.

Rosensweig is off to join Chegg.com, a company that specializes in online textbook rentals and has recently put together more than $160 million in investor funding. There's a rumor going around that Rosensweig got fired (presumably for the recent decline in the genre's sales), but Activision's Dan Amrich says that's simply not true, and that the move was completely voluntary. Either way, there's a new sheriff in plastic guitar town, and we'll see how he deals with any bandits that come a-ridin' through.

Things took a step towards the alternative in last month's Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero DLC offerings, but it seems February will see the games' downloadable music get back on the path of straight-up rock. We'll be seeing new (old) jams from 30 Seconds to Mars, Breaking Benjamin, Third-Eye Blind and Black Sabbath. We personally can't wait to see Taylor Swift cover Ozzy's part on "Sweet Leaf."

All track packs will be available for $5.49 on PS3, 550 Wii Points or 440 on Xbox 360. In addition, all songs will be available seperately for $1.99, 200 Wii Points or 160. Head past the break for the complete list of February's downloadable songs.

In its continued quest to unearth some of PC gaming's finest relics, GOG.com has announced a new deal with Activision Publishing Inc. -- in the context of purveying point-and-click classics, that means Sierra games! The first two games to be added to GOG's DRM-free lineup are role-playing favorite Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magic Obscura; and Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, the first outing of Jane Jensen's caustic-witted writer and detective. Both titles are priced at $5.99.

More classic titles from Activision's vault are expected to be added over the coming weeks. With Gabriel Knight star Tim Curry leading the charge, anything can happen.

Are you on the fence about whether or not you should pick up the cumbersomely titled Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies for your Apple-branded mobile device? First of all, fence straddling is dangerous. Get down from there! Also, there's no reason to be all wishy-washy anymore, as a free "Lite" version of the game has recently become available on the App Store.

Zombies Lite allows players to mow down three rounds of oncoming Nazombies in a single-player match, or two waves of the undead in a multiplayer match before coming to an abrupt end. That may come off as a little unsatisfying, but hey -- 'tis better to have murdered zombies and lost than to have never murdered zombies at all.

In the latest issue of Edge Magazine, Harmonix head Alex Rigopulos and Neversoft project director Brian Bright both speak out regarding the current state of rhythm-music gaming. As you might imagine, neither developer thinks that the genre is flatlining. In fact, Rigopulos even believes that "future music games will exceed the sales success of the last generation."

Surprisingly, though, while each heads up their own approach to the genre, the two seem to be in near-direct agreement on the next step for their franchises. "User-generated content will be absolutely critical to the ongoing success of the genre, I think," Rigopulos says. Bright echoes his statement, saying, "I think user-created content is key to the evolution ... if you can't create or edit licensed music due to copyright laws, then you're limited to pretending to play someone else's music."

That said, each developer differs in their definition of exactly what that "user-created content" will be. In the case of Rigopulos, he believes the Rock Band Network and its potentially "huge community of power-users -- skilled music creators" will be his company's next "defining moment." Bright is less sure of a plan, simply stating, "I think the key is to create music, but make it compelling to create, so the game is in the creation."

It looks like we'll get to see the next Tony Hawk joint soon enough. The skateboarding legend recently tweeted that he just concluded a meeting with developer Robomodo. Tony Hawk said the project is already "much better than I expected," though we think he may be a bit biased on the matter. He added that details would be available "soon."

As for what it is he liked so much, all signs point to a Tony Hawk Ride sequel -- the sequel that Tony himself said was already in the works during a recent interview. And should that be the case, we think Robomodo and Mr. Hawk have a lot to think about, especially if they want to avoid releasing another critical bomb.

[Via MCV]

What specifically is One of Swords? Are you One of Swords?

One of Swords is my gamer identity. I had been thinking of changing my gamertag for a little while, and when I went looking around for something else that had personal meaning, I hit on this, and the new project came up around the same time. But then I realized, okay, this can also be the name of an editorial website; this can be my home on the web. So OneOfSwords is really its own bloggy entity, a platform/portal to all the podcasts and interviews and videos and journalistic style things I want to do here.

Last time we heard from Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, he was explaining how terrible one of his company's franchises was. He's previously joked about increasing prices even further. If you want to be there when he issues his next great Quotick, you should go to the DICE summit -- or, barring that, wait five minutes for shocked journalists to pass it along.

The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences announced that Kotick will open the Summit Sessions with a talk about "how creative talent drives the video game industry." That is, creative talent who is not having any fun.

"Activision Blizzard is home to some of the most talented developers in our industry and we are thrilled to have Bobby's insight on how great games are built upon great talent," AIAS president Joseph Olin said. Kotick's talk will take place Thursday, February 18.

If there's a statistic measuring how well a game sold, you're likely to find Wii Play lingering in it somewhere. It's not only been the best-selling game of 2009, but also just recently made itself known as the top seller for the last decade. Now, according to NPD data (via GameSpot), the software-hardware hybrid has claimed another throne: top-selling non-PC US game ever.

It's a pretty prestigious list and while no exact figures are listed (save for the bundle's October performance, selling a whopping 11.1 million units in that month alone), the other games listed should give you an indication of just how many homes Wii Play has invaded. Taking second place is Guitar Hero III, the first game to earn $1 billion in revenue, followed by Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The others in the top ten are generally expected, including Activision's other $1 billion earner, Modern Warfare 2 (notable because, damn, that was fast!), along with a pair of other Call of Duty games. Head over to GameSpot for the full list.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick didn't just talk up the DJ Hero franchise in his recent Game Informer interview. According to Destructoid, he also disparaged the quality of his company's Spider-Man games.

"Our Spider-Man games have sucked for the last five years," Kotick said, inadvertently revealing that he must not have played either the 360/PS3 or DS Web of Shadows games. "They are bad games. They were poorly rated because they were bad games."

As for why they sucked: "We went away from what is Spider-Man," Kotick said. "It's about web-slinging. If you don't do web-slinging, what is the fantasy of Spider-Man?" Since this is Activision, we can speculate about how the company will focus on web-slinging: By packaging a special "web shooter" controller with the game in a big $120 box. And, of course, a new developer will be involved with whatever happens with the franchise since next-gen Web of Shadows dev Shaba Games is no more.

Apparently, Peter Jackson happily contributed to Modern Warfare 2's gigantic pile of cash, as a recent interview with Ain't It Cool News shows. He goes on at great length discussing his time with the game, most notably his campaign and Spec-Ops progress. More interesting, however, are his thoughts on gaming in general and his eagerness to undertake an original gaming project of his own at Wingnut Interactive.

Sure, he's no stranger to gaming (he had a hand in the game adaptation of King Kong, after all), has a TinTin thing in the works and also something based on the upcoming The Hobbit movie, but he's got a few, more original ideas banging around the old noggin. Not only is he considering doing a video game -- a medium he describes is "getting more and more interesting" -- but he's also considering a movie and spin-off game approach. Really, he's at the concept stage right now.

With his film The Lovely Bones finally out in theaters, he's now free to initiate his next move. That is when he's not playing Spec-Ops, of course.

[Via Gamasutra]

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick mentioned in a recent interview that he could have bought World of Warcraft developer Blizzard Entertainment back in the mid-'90s for a mere $7 million -- instead of having to do that whole $18 billion deal 12 years later. Speaking with Game Informer, the polarizing executive notes that during a dinner in 1995 he was shocked that another company bothered to buy Blizzard for $7 million. That year, Kotick says that Activision had about $60 million in revenue.

The executive thought at the time that his dinner companions were "out of [their] minds." In fairness, Blizzard only really had Lost Vikings and Warcraft in those relatively early years of the developer. It's actually Blizzard founder Mike Morhaime who is probably kicking himself more (financially speaking) now, as Kotick relays that Morhaime told him recently,"Yeah, could you imagine if I had just held out for the seven billion instead of the seven million?'"

Megadeth's inclusion as DLC in Rock Band (not to mention past appearances in Guitar Hero games) apparently won't stifle the group from putting together something "over-the-moon" with Neversoft and Activision for the future. In a "Scorpion" feature (read: "Ask the Band") on the band's website, a couple of fans posed the "What about a Guitar Hero game?" question, to which the lead singer/guitarist Dave Mustaine replied: "I have recently had two very important high-level meetings with the people from Activision and Neversoft, and we are talking about a lot of things."

He only clarifies a teensy bit, saying a Guitar Hero: Megadeth game "is not attractive" to him and that the Guitar Hero developers have instead offered up a "new idea." Mustaine also laments past legal run-ins, and hopes that no one "stand[s] in the way of this happening." We've contacted Megadeth as well as Activision for more information on the subject, and will be rocking as hard as possible while we wait for a reply. Oh, and yes, we suppose we'll tell you if we hear more.

[Via Kotaku]