EL33TONLINE: News tag archive: bobbykotick
Following frantic internet rumours and reports that Activision had laid off a number of employees across at least two of its internal studios, while cancelling two high profile projects currently in development, the news has just been confirmed by Activision proper in the publisher’s latest financial report.
In a recent interview with Eurogamer, and while talking on a range of topics, head of Double Fine Productions (Psychonauts, Brütal Legend) Tim Schafer let loose a spate of vitriol when the topic of Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick came up.
Calling Kotick a ‘pr*ck’ and a ‘d**k,’ Schafer went on to say that Kotick’s attitude towards games, and game developers, isn’t good for the industry, noting that the Activision boss could happily move into another industry that “makes more money. Ball bearings… Something that suits his passions more. Weapons manufacturing?”
Here are a few select Schafer quotes from the Eurogamer interview:
Activision Blizzard recently posted results for its fiscal third quarter ending December 31st, and in spite of the industry crushing sales performance of the publisher’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, quarterly net loss widened from $72 million the year previous to $286 million.
Partly to blame for this performance, says Activision Blizzard, was a softer casual and music game market, but the company still claims that it beat prior expectations.
Activision Blizzard recently announced that last year’s DJ Hero was the highest grossing new intellectual property in the US and Europe for calendar year 2009, according to data released by sales tracker The NPD Group.
CEO of Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick enthused:
In comments made to Game Informer last month, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has confirmed that a follow-up to last year’s excellent-but-slightly-flawed DJ Hero is in the works, and somewhat dubiously admitted that they didn’t “get it right” the first time around.
Speaking about the publisher’s commitment to new and original intellectual property (IP) for the long haul, Kotick said:
Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick recently gave an indication of where the future of the company’s Guitar Hero franchise may lie, and it doesn’t look as though traditional home consoles factor into this outlook.
Speaking at the Deutsche Bank Securities Technology Conference yesterday afternoon, Kotick gave a presentation regarding the future of the games industry and potential growth in the market.
During the question and answer session, an audience member asked Kotick about the possibility of Activision Blizzard’s titles, and other company’s games, foregoing the need to use a physical, traditional console to play them, most probably referencing cloud computing-type streaming initiatives such as Gaikai and OnLive.
In their second fiscal quarter financial report, Activision Blizzard revealed that revenue for the period ended June 30th reached $1.04 billion, ahead of previous estimates of $1 billion, as well the fact that the company has a bevy of new games in development, but were also forced to reveal that the release of StarCraft II was being moved into the first half of calendar year 2010.
Driving the excellent performance for the second quarter, however, were titles such as Prototype, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Continued strong sales of entries to the Guitar Hero, World of Warcraft and Call of Duty franchises also contributed to the better than expected quarterly revenue.
Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick also announced 2.8 percentage points of market share growth in North America and Europe across all platforms, rising to 12.7 percent over 9.9 percent last year. Kotick also said that, according to NPD, Chart-Track and Gfk sales tracking data, Activision Blizzard was the number one third-party console and handheld software publisher in North America during the quarter.
Speaking to Gamasutra late last week, and in reply to Activision Blizzard chief Bobby Kotick’s call for a PlayStation hardware price drop, Sony have issued a statement attempting to calm the nerves of the giant Call of Duty and Guitar Hero publisher, as well as assuage concerns related to the PlayStation brand’s perceived slip in momentum.
Shortly after Kotick’s comments came to light, vaguely threatening to drop Activision’s support for Sony’s gaming platforms if price drops for the hardware were not forthcoming, Sony Computer Entertainment America senior director of corporate communications and social media, Patrick Seybold said in a statement:
In what is surely a less-than-subtle hint to Sony, in an interview with the Times Online, Activision Blizzard boss Bobby Kotick has stated that if the hardware manufacturing giant doesn’t cut the price of their PlayStation 3, Activision Blizzard “might have to stop supporting” them.
This comment follows on from Kotick’s remarks about his concerns and frustrations with Sony, which could lead to Activision Blizzard reconsidering its stance as far as developing for Sony’s platforms go. In relation to this, Kotick said:
“I’m getting concerned about Sony; the PlayStation 3 is losing a bit of momentum and they don’t make it easy for me to support the platform. It’s expensive to develop for the console, and the Wii and the Xbox are just selling better. Games generate a better return on invested capital on the Xbox than on the PlayStation.”
Activision Blizzard is reporting $981 million in revenue for the last quarter of their fiscal year ending on March 31st, with $189 million in profits, which they say is all thanks to the continued impressive performance of games in their Guitar Hero and Call of Duty franchises.
Guitar Hero and Call of Duty, the company claims, remain two of the top five best selling franchises in the US and Europe, as Guitar Hero: World Tour became the best selling third-party title in the US across all platforms (in dollars), and is the best selling third-party title on the Wii – the only third-party title to crack the top five best selling games on the platform.
Speaking to CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has confirmed the existence of DJ Hero, a peripheral-based game that will come packaged with a turntable and recording deck, as the game focusses on the experience of becoming a DJ.
Regarding innovation at Activision Blizzard and the game industry in general, Kotick confirmed the news:
“We have this product called DJ Hero coming out later this year, which is a turntable that you actually can play competitively and spin discs and mix songs.”
DJ Hero’s existence, until now, has only been mentioned as a rumour based on assumptions, so it’s nice to see an official announcement from the head cheese himself.
Bobby Kotick, head of Activision, has proclaimed his company’s dominance in the music rhythm genre by throwing some numbers around. During the recent Goldman Sachs Communacopia XVII Conference at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York, Kotick revealed that, not only is the Guitar Hero franchise outselling Rock Band 6 to 1, they have many more people dedicated to the task of dominating that market. Kotick bellowed:
“We’re outselling [Rock Band] 6:1. When you think about the access we have to 30% of the world’s music at Universal, we have a unique advantage there. I would also say when you look at resources, you know, our next-nearest competitor has a couple of hundred people working on these projects, we have close to 2000 people just dedicated to the Guitar Hero note tracking, introduction of new hardware, introduction of new software, and so we just have a lot more in the way of resources available to us to continue to dominate the category.” Right on, Bobby. Right on.
Source: Kotaku
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