Activision Blizzard has released its financial results for the company’s second fiscal quarter ending June 30th, posting net revenues of $967 million, down from $1.04 billion during the same period last year.

Activision Blizzard Chief Operating Officer Thomas Tippl said:

“I think we could have done better on the revenue side,” and that in addition to a stronger dollar affecting revenue, Tippl noted that “some of our new releases did not perform up to expectations,” with Shrek Forever After and Singularity amongst those titles.

The publisher’s profit came in at $219 million for the quarter, up 12% from last year.

Tippl also revealed that, for the first time, revenue from Activision Blizzard’s range of online avenues (online subscriptions for World of Warcraft, downloadable content sales, sales on Battle.net, etc.) surpassed revenue from retail sales, further demonstrating the success of moving into the digital realm, and making a further case for companies scrambling to stake a claim in this valuable territory.

With the release of the company’s financial results, it’s been revealed that the release of True Crime: Hong Kong has been moved from late 2010 into 2011, in an effort to give the development team “more time to deliver the high-quality entertainment experience they envision for the game.”

Activision also took the time to reveal the fact that Call of Duty was the number one third-party franchise in the US and Europe for the first six months of the calendar year, while Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was the number one first-person action game – this according to sales trackers and research groups NPD, Chart Track and Gfk.

Also according to NPD, and during this six month period, Activision was the number two third-party console and handheld publisher in the US.

Activision also trotted out some previously known sales data for StarCraft II, and the company’s range of Call of Duty map packs.

In a statement Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick wrote:

“Our quarterly results were fueled by continued strong consumer response to Activision Publishing’s Call of Duty franchise and Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft.

“Call of Duty: Black Ops is shaping up to be one of the best games Activision Publishing has ever created, the marketing programs are the biggest in the company’s history and to date, pre-orders of the game exceed the pre-orders for Modern Warfare 2 at this time last year.

“This fall, our lineup includes Activision Publishing’s Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, DJ Hero 2, Tony Hawk: SHRED, Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, GoldenEye 007 and Bakugan, all of which look to be very promising as well.

“We have never been better positioned for the holiday season than we are today with such a strong slate of games and the best team in our industry to bring them to market.”