guitar-hero posts

A few weeks ago, publisher Activision Blizzard predicted revenues of $860 million for their last fiscal quarter (which ended on March 31). Today the official numbers came in and they were even better than expected as the company recorded a whopping $981 million in revenues. This compares to $325 million in revenues for the same period a year ago.

The company recorded a net profit of $189 million for the quarter versus a $43 million profit from the same period a year ago. Once again Activision Blizzard announced that continued sales of their Guitar Hero and Call of Duty game franchises, along with revenues from their World of Warcraft MMO, contributed to their sales success. The company is now predicting revenes of $4.3 billion for the entire calendar year of 2009.

It's the beginning of the quarterly "earnings season" as public corporation announce their regular financial results. Activision Blizzard decided to get a jump on things by announcing some figures ahead of their official results. The publisher expects their last fiscal quarter (which ended on March 31) to bring in $860 million in revenues. Activision Blizzard previously predicted that they would have "just" $550 million for the quarter.

Continued high sales of games in their Guitar Hero and Call of Duty franchises were cited as a large part of the revenue increase. Subscriptions for Blizzard's World of Warcraft MMO also contributed to the revenue increase. It should be interesting to see how other game publishers compare to Activision Blizzard, especially in this economic situation.

Last year Aspyr Media released a PC and Mac port of Activision's music-rhythm game Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock only a few weeks after the console versions from Neversoft and Activision shipped to stores. Today the publisher announced that Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, the stand alone add-on that was released to consoles last June, has now shipped to stores for the PC and Mac.

Just in case you are not familiar with the game, Guitar Hero Aerosmith contains over 40 new songs for Guitar Hero III fans, including 25 Aerosmith master tracks along with other artists like Stone Temple Pilots, Run DMC and others. If you haven't bought the original game you don't need it to play this title. However if you want to buy both Aspyr will ship out a bundle containing both games on November 4.

Welcome to Freeware Friday, a weekly column showcasing excellent games that you can play free of charge!

The rhythm genre is one that seems to be exploding, especially with the advent of Guitar Hero. Everbody loves to wail on plastic guitars and pretend to be a rock god! Just look at the bevy of knock-offs, as well as the war between the Guitar Hero and Rock Band franchises. For the PC, though, there's a great Guitar Hero freeware clone for those who want custom music in their game. That clone is the excellent freeware game Frets on Fire, which also happens to have the most ridiculous logo known to man.

The newly merged Activision Blizzard may want to get rid of a number of the now former Vivendi Games' developers and game titles but it looks like Activision Publishing wants to continue to expand. Today the company announced that it has acquired UK developer FreeStyleGames for an undisclosed amount.

FreeStyleGames was formed in 2002 and in 2006 released a Playstation music title called B-Boy that was released in Europe and Korea but never made it to the US. Under their new Activision owners, FreeStyleGames will help contribute to their massively selling Guitar Hero franchise and will also develop an all new music game. Meanwhile, Activision Blizzard has yet to announced what they plan to do with two Vivendi Games developers, Swordfish Studios and Massive Entertainment. Both of these teams are currently in limbo as Activision Blizzard announced earlier this summer that they don't plan to bring them into their new organization. Several announced former Vivendi game titles like World in Conflict: Soviet Assault and Brutal Legend are also without a publisher at this time.

It didn't get a lot of publicity but last year Guitar Hero III was released for the PC and Mac by Aspyr and it's possible that the next major game in the series, Guitar Hero World Tour, could be heading to the PC as well. A listing on the Entertainment Software Ratings Board site clearly shows a "Windows PC" listing for the Activision game alongside the console versions.

Guitar Hero World Tour will not only feature guitar controllers but a new drum controller as well as singing for the first time along with a way to create your own music that can be used in the game. It's currently due out for release for consoles this fall but so far Activision has not yet confirmed if the PC version will actually be released.

MCV magazine recently spoke with Activision Blizzard CFO Thomas Tippl on the recent merger between Activision and Vivendi that resulted in the largest gaming conglomerate in existence.

Due to the high number of popular franchises developed by Activision and Blizzard individually, MCV was curious as to which titles might be considered high priority in terms of the new juggernaut's future plans. Not surprisingly, Tippl was quick to herald Guitar Hero, which he stated has "sold more than any video game in the history of the industry," and the continued focus on Call of Duty.

On Blizzard's side of the equation is the ever-popular World of WarCraft, which now boasts more than 11 million worldwide subscribers, making it the leading subscription-based MMO. Coupled with last year's StarCraft II announcement and the more recent unveiling of Diablo III, Tippl didn't have to work hard to convince MCV (or anyone else in the gaming world) that Blizzard's line-up will be as strong as ever through the next several years.

Specifics regarding stock shares were also discussed. When asked if Vivendi's 52 per cent holding classified the merger as more of an acquisition of Activision than a partnership, Tippl discussed the company's recently announced self-tender, " which will last for 20 business days. During that period of time, shareholders who want to sell up can do so at a price of $27.50."

The full interview is available at MCVUK.com.

Just as they have done with iTunes, those in control of The Beatles music have been holding out on video gamers the world over. Until now. According to several sources (Financial Times, GameSpot), MTV Games and Activision are duking it out for the rights to bring The Beatles into the video game revolution.

As everyone knows, Activision publishes the Guitar Hero games, series, which includes Guitar Hero World Tour (the multi-instrument version) due out this autumn, while MTV Games publishes its rival, Rock Band. Obviously both would do just about anything to secure the rights to The Beatles massive back catalog of mega hits.

The Financial Times cites that a deal could be done in just a few weeks; a deal that will in all likely-hood be worth several million dollars. However, final approval would have to come from both EMI (who owns the master recordings) and Apple Corps (who watches over the band's business affaris). With that many levels of red tape, and the fact that Apple Corps has been insanely protective when it comes to releasing their music to digital licensing... let's hope we see it happen in our lifetime.

[via X3F]

Did you watch the American Idol season finale last week? Then if you didn't fast forward through the commercials you saw the first project between game publisher Activision and movie director Brett Ratner (the Rush Hour series). Ratner directed the two Guitar Hero commericals featuring this season's final two singers. But that's apparently not the only thing Ratner and Activision have planned, according to a new article in Variety.

The director has launched a new company, Brett Ratner Brands, that aims to "infuse a dose of pop culture into clients' marketing campaigns." Right now Activision is his sole client but Ratner is already looking ahead beyond TV ads. He is quoted as saying, "The games business is much more exciting than the movie business right now. I will be doing movies that come from videogames." Hmmm..a Call of Duty movie directed by Ratner? Hey, he actually did a better-than-average job on the third X-Men movie so anything is possible.