World of Warcraft has been perched high atop the massively-multiplayer throne for seven years now, but is about to get its first serious dose of competition when the Electronic Arts-published Star Wars: The Old Republic launches. While it’s not really a shock to learn that some folks have already indicated that they’ll be leaving Azeroth for a galaxy far, far away, a new survey indicates that WoW could shed anywhere between 900,000 and 1.6M players when the lightsabers start swinging.

According to Develop, a survey of nearly 400 online WoW customers indicated about 50% of them planned to purchase The Old Republic. In light of those results, Lazard Capital Markets downgraded Activision Blizzard’s stock from ‘buy’ to ‘neutral.’

However, it’s worth noting that the very same survey indicated that 33% of WoW players said they’d re-subscribe to the game upon the release of the upcoming Mists of Pandaria expansion. People love pandas.

The stock rating downgrade also follows the news that Wow’s subscriber base is down about 800,000 users in recent months, as well as news that majority shareholder Vivendi “shed thirty million of its shares in Activision Blizzard, reducing its stake to 60 per cent,” last week.

All this aside, World of WarCraft still has more than 10 million current subscribers.

Source: Shack News 

Sledgehammer Games’ Glen Schofield has taken to Twitter to ask Call of Duty fans to support Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3on Metacritic.

“I don’t usually do this but, if u like MW3 go 2 Metacritic.com & help our user score,” writes Schofield. “It’s suspiciously low. Be honest but help if u agree.”

Modern Warfare 3 is attracting a torrent of user scores of zero across all three platforms. The current user score (out of 10) is:

2.7 on Xbox 360
2.0 on PS3 and
1.5 on PC.

Ouch.

It appears that copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 have been spotted early in Kmart stores around the country (USA). If you manage to get to a Kmart before stores took away the stock, you might be able to get your hands on a copy of Modern Warfare 3 a full 5 days early.

But what is the most ridiculous part? Copies of the game have already been posting up on eBay for ridiculous bidding prices.  It appears some of the listings are being taken down by eBay. However, one copy of MW3 sold for US $1,725.00 and you can only imagine if someone is actually going to pay that cost just for a 60 dollar game. How crazy is that? Other listings include the game at a price of 500 dollars as “Buy it Now”  or more. Is eBay spotting these and taking them down?

What’s even more funny is the comments in the Product Reviews of this listing. People are already writing “reviews” of the game and one kid claims to have gotten an early copy thanks to his dad working at Nintendo? I mean really? What a crazy world we live in.

Activision has sent out the official launch trailer for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 developed by Sledgehammer Games and Infinity Ward. The launch trailer gives you a general overview of the main campaign, as we already know what to expect from the multiplayer.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 launches on November 8th for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC and it also supports two player co-op local and online.

The upcoming release of GoldenEye 007 Reloaded for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 has gained a lot of interested since its Nintendo Wii release last year.

Now, Activision is working to bring that experience to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 gamers, and more importantly with this announcement for PlayStation gamers. A new Double ‘O’ edition will combine the Blu-ray disc title, PlayStation Move and Navigation controllers, PlayStation Eye camera as well as Sharp Shooter peripheral. The bundle package and the retail release of the game will be available on November 1, 2011. For PlayStation 3 gamers, Activision revealed you’ll receive an exclusive downloadable character. The notorious villain from the 1979 film Moonraker, HUGO DRAX, will be playable in split-screen and online Classic Conflict multiplayer modes while wielding his Moonraker Laser Pistol.

“Working closely with Sony, we’ve created a great bundle that arms fans with all the vital secret agent equipment right off the shelf,” said David Oxford, Executive Vice President at Activision Publishing.  “We can’t wait for gamers to pick up the PlayStation Move and Sharp Shooter to experience a James Bond video game like never before.”

“If any game has been tailor-made for the PlayStation Move and Sharp Shooter, it’s GoldenEye 007: Reloaded,” said Rob Dyer, Senior Vice President, Sony Computer Entertainment of America.  “This is a reimagining of one of the most revered and iconic shooters of all time, and we wanted to allow our PlayStation fans to truly step into the shoes of everyone’s favorite secret agent with the unparalleled control of Sony Computer Entertainment’s motion-based entertainment.”

[Via Joystiq]

You see it every week on the Xbox Live charts provided by Major Nelson, Call of Duty: Black Ops is constantly in top 10. It shouldn’t be any surprise to anyone; Black Ops has an addictive multiplayer style. But, what makes it so addicting? Yes, it is pretty obvious the title is a first person shooter, but we’re looking at content here. The game has quite a bit of content for you to mess around with, more so then most average first person shooters out there. From Team Deathmatch, too Domination, to Free for All and many others, the variety is there to keep you playing. The game ships with 14 different maps, not counting the downloadable content. These maps are based on the single player campaign, so some of them might look familiar. These on their own are enough to keep coming back for more, but people want variety and that’s where the downloadable content steps in.

The first map pack was First Strike, which was released back on February 1^st, 2011. The pack in total gave us four new maps and a zombie map. The four maps were “Berlin Wall”, “Discovery”, “Kowloon”, and “Stadium”. Stadium was a fast pace arena style map that really gave you no chance for sniping spots. You’ll have possibly an opportunity for campers, but of course that’s something you deal with in every first person shooter out there. I think it would be safe to say that our favorite map here on this map pack is “Berlin Wall”. It adds a bit of strategy and makes you think about where your position is. There is also what is known as “no man’s land” if you decide to cross into the middle of the wall before being gunned down by machine gun nests. There are plenty of places to hide including a record storm, which is easily where you could hide C4 or other devices to your advantage.

A few months down the road (in April) and Treyarch releases a second map pack entitled “Escalation”. This pack introduced the following maps: “Zoo”, “Hotel”, “Convoy”, and “Stockpile”. Stockpile is a map you’ll find a lot of people hiding around corners. It has open spaces, and more strategic places you could take advantage of. In games like Domination you’ll more then likely find campers in every corner of the map looking to defend their points as they can. I find one game mode that is one of the better ones out there is “Search and Destroy”.

Finally, the last complete map pack for multiplayer was entitled Annihilation and contained 4 new multiplayer maps. These maps included: “Hangar 18″, “Hazard”, “Drive-In”, and “Silo”. Our favorite of this bunch is Drive-In, it’s close quarters combat and can easily net you a few surprise knife kills as well. There are a few spots for sniping as well which I have found to be quite comfortable if you know how use them. Hazard is a major sniping zone and you’ll find yourself hearing the words “SNIPER!” more then a few times when in-session. Both sides of the map offer long distances for the “Long Shot” challenge if you can pull it off. Some of the easy spots include inside the billboard as well as the sand traps and bridges on the northern part of the map. By now, everyone has learned the majority of these maps, so my advice to you? Keep up with everyone and train on the maps inside Combat Training. One of the greatest achievements to the Call of Duty experience is Combat Training. It offers an opportunity for you to get a feel for how the maps look and what you can expect to see when you venture into the online world.

So, with all these maps released for Black Ops over the year, can we expect to see the same kind of support in Modern Warfare 3? I would certainly like to see Infinity Ward add more widespread maps with more space for sniping. Maps like Hazard were fun in this respect providing a lot of space while still having room for close quarter combat. Other maps like “Berlin Wall” were very entertaining and with the added “No Man’s Land” aspect of the map, it left you with a more strategic style of thinking. We can only wait and see what Infinity Ward will do once Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 launches on November 8^th, 2011. What would you like to see in Modern Warfare 3’s multiplayer?

Coming this holiday season, Activision has announced DreamWorks Super Star Kartz.

DreamWorks Super Star Kartz is a compilation of 14 characters from DreamWorks Animation from Shrek, Madagascar, How to Train Your Dragon and Monsters Vs. Aliens into a new kart racing game similar to that of Mario Kart. You’ll race as your favorite characters as you jump, speed, and boost your way through wild courses. Racers can put the pedal to the metal with multiple game modes including Battle, Circuit and Time Trial. You’ll have unique weaponry and tricks to beat out your opponents and your invited to bring your friends in competitive 4 player split screen co-op on consoles.

The game is rated E for Everyone and will be available this holiday season for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3Ds.

Over the last year details on Modern Warfare 3′s multiplayer has been a bit of a mystery and Activision has had yet to reveal any detail. Now, we have a full length trailer for you to feast your eyes on.

The new trailer details some interesting perks and kill streaks for you to earn this go around. It should turn your 5 minute gaming session into 5 hours or more. I fondly remember back in the day playing more then 5 hours a night on Modern Warfare 2 for a while there. Infinity Ward is looking to make a splash again and it looks like they just might accomplish that.

Valve announced today that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will be using Steam and Steamworks.

You’ll be able to use to pre-order the game via pre-purchase on Steam. The game will be releasing worldwide on November 8th. The PC version of the game will  have two versions that are powered by Steamworks as both a digital version and a tangible version. Offline play will also be supported by Auto-Updating and Achievements. Valve also mentions that Call of Duty will support dedicated servers on day 1. If you want to learn more about how Steam works visit http://www.steamgames.com/.

Activision is bringing its Wii release of Goldeneye 007: Reloaded to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 this fall. The good news being that there will be a lot of improvements graphically while being 60 frames per second along with PlayStation Move capability among other standard bells and whistles.

However, the only issue is this game will more then likely be overshadowed by the big releases like Gears of War 3, Modern Warfare 3 and even Battlefield 3.

Activision has sent over a trailer for their newest and third map pack offering for Black Ops players. Check it out.

Developed by High Moon Studios, Transformers: Dark of the Moon launches this week on all consoles. the movie is shaping up to be a good one and the game looks too follow in its footsteps. We shall see once reviews start rolling in.

Just towards the end of the demonstration of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Don Mattrick revealed that future downloadable content will be exclusive on Xbox 360. So, if you gamers out there not owning an Xbox will have to wait for the $15 map packs. This is an obvious move as this news continued when Black Ops was released and Xbox 360 was the first to receive its downloadable content only a few weeks ahead of Playstation 3 and PC owners. Here’s the entire gameplay segment of Modern Warfare 3 from Microsoft’s E3 2011 press conference:

While E3 is still a couple of hours away from kicking off, here’s a look at the newest Spidey title. Spiderman Edge of Time will still pit Spidey against alternate versions of himself but this time in different time periods instead of alternate dimensions as with the last game, Shattered Dimensions.

Spiderman Edge of Time will release this this Fall for all major platforms.

Bizarre Creations will officially be shutting up shop on Friday February 18th. The developer made around 20 games over 15 years, and managed to accumulate 200 members of staff at the height of their success. The studio was officially formed in 1994 under Bizarre Creations, but industry veteran Martyn Chudley actually started the group back in 1988 under a different name.

Activision has been on a rampage, with the publisher closing developers every which way over the past year. They have even cancelled their prize franchises: Guitar Hero and Tony Hawks amongst others. Rumours suggest they are clearing house in order to pick up Take Two and/or Rockstar Games. Maybe they will run them into the ground too with Call of Duty-esque yearly updates.

Activision has confirmed that the currently 360 exclusive Call of Duty: Black Ops First Strike map pack will be released on the PS3 on March 3rd. It will also be hitting the PC by April, too. The DLC was purchased 1.4 million times within 24 hours of its February 1st launch on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Strong rumours suggest that Activision has killed off the Guitar Hero franchise after poor sales of the recent iterations. The publisher has hit DJ Hero developer Freestyle Games with severe layoffs and cancelled United Front’s True Crime too. An official announcement will be made just before the publication of Activision’s financial results.

Treyarch have unveiled some interesting Black Ops facts. They said that the three most-picked perks are: Marathon, Sleight of Hand and Lightweight. The most popular guns are the Famas, the AK-74u and the Galil. The deadliest Killstreak is the RC-XD surprisingly, with the Attack Helicopter, Napalm Strike and Chopper Gunner behind.

There has been 242 million knife stabbings in Black Ops, and over one trillion shots have been fired with projectile weapons too. There have been nearly 600 million executions and 10 million paybacks too. One million cars have been destroyed and 1.3 million planes have been shot down as well.

Moreover, Black Ops players have travelled the distance of the Earth’s circumference 129,069 times. 3.4 billion crossbow bolts have also been fired, with a staggering 28 million deaths caused by the infamous tomahawk axe. Furthermore, if Black Ops was real the population of the world would have been killed nine times over. Over five billion of those would have met their end by a bullet to the face. People have captured a lot of those deaths in over 43 million videos as well.

Activision has permanents banned PS3 Call of Duty: Black Ops cheaters from playing the game online. If someone has tried to cheat, they will get the following message: “Error – This console has been permanent banned from playing on the Call of Duty: Black Ops servers. For more information, visit www.callofduty.com/blackops/help.”

The only way for people to play the game online again is to get another console. If you were to peruse the PS3 Black Ops forums you will see the usual wave of folk moaning that they haven’t done anything wrong and “leant their console to a friend” or such. Whilst it may be humorous entertainment, it seems with grammar like that they shouldn’t have been allowed to play the game in the first place.

We’re glad Activision is doing something to combat the hackers, even though they still haven’t sorted out the Modern Warfare 2 lot. However, this should be up to Sony. So far, the house of PlayStation hasn’t unleashed any console bans as they are scared it will hit their PlayStation Store profits. Microsoft doesn’t have such worries as they’re already making a ridiculous amount of money from Live so they regularly release ban waves to cleanse the gene pool. Nowadays, they have even stopped some games working for hackers at all.

Treyarch has released an update for the PS3 version of Call of Duty: Black Ops. What’s funny about this patch is that it comes on the same day as Gamers’ Voice reported Activision UK to the Office of Fair Trading over the “never-ending list of problems” with the game. The new update is called 1.06 and many players are stating that the usual issues (lag, disconnection, etc.) are still in the game. Regardless, the patch is supposed to do the following apparently:

 • New contracts added to the rotation.

• Added optional pre-match timer for LAN / System-Link games.

Issues Addressed:

• Fixed freeze associated with larger games.

• Improved reliability of players connections to one another.

• Improved ability to bring parties to the game lobby. Late party joiners would try to connect to previous lobby host and be denied if new joiners trigger a lobby host migration.

• Addressed an issue where the Host encounters and infinite spinning loading circle after a Host migration.

• Fixed a timing specific, long/infinite loading screen when joining games (sometimes giving you “Error – Read error (0×80010713) on file “).

• Fixed a timing-specific freeze when host powered down during host migration.

• Cleaned up the map search filter in the Community section (deleted unused entries).

• Fixed Combat Training’s “USE FRIENDS” option for bots names.

• Fixed issue with split-screen guest profile names being blank, resulting in matches never launching.

• Instead of showing the generic “Player” for offline profiles in LAN, we now display the PS3 profile name.

• Fixed Friends list appearing after viewing a Friends Playercard from the Leaderboards.

• Fixed filter so players can now view Friends on Zombies leadboards.

• Fix timing specific issue where the game can be put into slow motion.

• Addressed “disconnected path” error when using the doors in Radiation after a host migration.

• Fixed stability issues navigating lobbies after client on Split Screen Zombies quits out of a game.

• Addressed issue/exploit when removing Counter Spy Plane effects with the Jammer.

• Fixed a freeze when quickly loading maps one after another in private match.

• Fixed issue where players get primary weapons in Second Chance.

• Fixed “NEW” stamp not disappearing for Custom Slot 9 when highlighting the slot.

• Removed water vision effect when respawning after dying in the acid pool in Radiation.

• Several contract fixes.

Gameplay Tuning:

• Second Chance – players that put an enemy into Second Chance are now credited for a full kill once that enemy dies. If another player kills the enemy while the enemy is in Second Chance, they will get assist credit.

• Adjustments to the PSG1 with attachments.

• AK74U adjustments.

• RCXD adjustments.

• Silenced sniper rifle adjustments.

• Removed hit markers when shooting friendly equipment.