Activision/Blizzard Still a Behemoth

Yesterday, Activision/Blizzard held their fourth quarter 2011 conference call for investors, and the results are staggering. Firstly, we have Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which brought in $775 million within it's first week. Adding on to the enormous community that has built up over the years, they launched the Call of Duty Elite Service which reported having 7 million plus members, 1.5 of which were under the premium payment members. Regardless of the issues the service launched with, Call of Duty Elite is proving to be a powerful resource for gamers, and Activision. The new Skylanders Spryo's Adventure was quoted as being their, "largest new IP launch ever". Which came as a huge shock to me seeing as how I wasn't sure whether or not they were even selling. Yet, with 20 million plus units sold it became the number 1 kids title. In a slide presentation available on their site, Skylanders is suggested to become a building block for their next billion dollar franchise, and can you blame them? With the power of not only video games, but toys for collection, in hindsight it becomes clear that it was bound for success. Children love toys and video games, what better way than to combine them?

On a sadder note, Diablo 3 was revealed to no longer be targeting a Q1 launch. Instead, they've set their sites on Q2 2012. With the amount of delays the game has already undergone, it seems more of the question whether or not it will simply be changed to Q3 soon. For all of you World of Warcraft players, their new expansion Mists of Pandaria, is set to have a new global press event on March 19th. Hopefully, they will announce a release date, but for fans I think that would be a very thin hope to hold on to. Be sure to check the site for info. As of December 31st, 2011 Activision|Blizzard reported $3.5 billion in cash and investments. What can't they do?