Our older, wiser siblings at Joystiq were lucky enough to sit in on a recent Activision Blizzard conference call, learning lots of details regarding the company's 2009 lineup. Publishing guru Mike Griffith noted that there would be 70 retail SKUs hitting shelves from Activision next year, representing a jump of 40% over 2008. As industry followers might expect, a considerable number of those SKUs will be covered by Call of Duty and Guitar Hero iterations. Joystiq notes that it's unclear if there will actually be multiple Call of Duty titles released, or if Griffith was referring to multiple SKUs of the same title -- i.e. Call of Duty 6 SKUs for PS3, 360, Wii, etc. Make no mistake though, there will be multiple Guitar Hero titles released in 2009 (we bet we can guess one of them).

Beyond those stalwart series, Acti-Blizzard is planning games based on movies including Monsters vs Aliens, Ice Age, Transformers and Wolverine. Also in the works are Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, a "newly reinvented" Tony Hawk, Wolfenstein and another James Bond title that won't be tied to a movie. Finally, there is a smattering of new IP, with plans to release Singularity, Prototype, a new racing title from Bizarre Creations, an unnamed Sierra title that Activision held onto after acquiring the company and some more unannounced titles (Brütal Legend, please?).