Bobby Kotick talks Guitar and DJ Hero, the fall and the coming rise

Bobby Kotick earned more than $4.4 billion through Activision Blizzard last year, which means his business success is obvious -- but so are his failures. In an interview with Forbes, Kotick described the downfall of the Guitar Hero and DJ Hero franchises with the kind of detail that can only come from lying awake every night for four years straight, obsessing over what went wrong.
"So we bought the company, and after a few iterations ...
Tony Hawk: New game coming next year

We fear that there may be no end in sight for Tony Hawk's long-troubled skateboarding series. Though Activision CEOs announced that 2011 would be the first year without a Tony Hawk game since the dawn of time, Hawk himself told PixelatedGeek in an impromptu interview that "We're actually right in the middle of making a whole new plan right now," when asked whether more Hawk-branded games were in the pipeline.
"We're going to do something probably for ...
New Transformers, Spider-Man and more next year, Activision doing ‘large-scale’ Call of Duty

Activision's recent conference call wasn't all facts and figures, you know. The company also outlined the future of some of its biggest franchises over the course of the next calendar year. According to CEO Eric Hirshberg, the publisher will launch titles from "proven franchises including the Hero brand, Spider-Man, X-Men and Transformers, which will be supported by what is expected to be another major blockbuster movie from Michael Bay." ...
Daily Crunch: Facility Edition

The CHOBI CAM WP is a cute, waterproof, and (very) small camera Infectious presents community-designed iPad skins that you’ll actually like Nintendo and Activision bring back Goldeneye~! Belkin Conserve let’s you know if you left the refrigerator running, tells you to go catch it Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword announced along with vastly improved Wii interaction
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Call of Duty: Black Ops set for Nov. 9, 2010

Your ability to recognize insanely popular brands has likely meshed with your ability to recognize dates, rendering the text in this post rather superfluous. Unfortunately for you, we all get paid extra for using lots and lots of words -- especially ones like "superfluous."
Activision has unveiled the official website for Call of Duty: Black Ops, the latest entry from the franchise's alternate developer, Treyarch (they're the ones you haven't ...
Activision exec Thomas Tippl speaks out on current Infinity Ward conditions

Ever since the private relationship between the ex-Infinity Ward heads and Activision management broke down and became a publicly debated matter (through two lawsuits), the state of affairs at IW have been up in the air. Various reports from "sources close to the studio" have arisen at Kotaku, with one alleged insider calling the studio "dead" and another giving a far less grim report.
Activision execs, however, ...