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With Activision's holiday fiscal report expected to release this week, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter is predicting that the Call of Duty profit machine may not repeat its fantastic 2009 performance this year. As reported by IndustryGamers, Pachter believes the Call of Duty franchise will generate "sharply lower revenue," in 2010, to the tune of a $250 million decline. Not to worry, though, as he notes that Activision is likely to more than make up for that amount thanks to Blizzard's impending releases (hello, StarCraft II). Aside from that, of course, it's important to remember that we're talking about a $250 million decrease on almost a billion dollars, so it's not like Pachter expects Call of Duty to wind up in the toilet.

It's worth noting that the previous Call of Duty title, World at War, initially outsold Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, though Modern Warfare remained on top after the dust settled. Unsurprisingly to anyone paying attention, Modern Warfare 2 turned around to outsell the original Modern Warfare. Still, all three remain among the best selling games of all time, so maybe it's okay if the next one is only phenomenally successful.

If there's a statistic measuring how well a game sold, you're likely to find Wii Play lingering in it somewhere. It's not only been the best-selling game of 2009, but also just recently made itself known as the top seller for the last decade. Now, according to NPD data (via GameSpot), the software-hardware hybrid has claimed another throne: top-selling non-PC US game ever.

It's a pretty prestigious list and while no exact figures are listed (save for the bundle's October performance, selling a whopping 11.1 million units in that month alone), the other games listed should give you an indication of just how many homes Wii Play has invaded. Taking second place is Guitar Hero III, the first game to earn $1 billion in revenue, followed by Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The others in the top ten are generally expected, including Activision's other $1 billion earner, Modern Warfare 2 (notable because, damn, that was fast!), along with a pair of other Call of Duty games. Head over to GameSpot for the full list.

So you've learned what dominated December's PSN sales. But what about the other eleven months of the year? Sony has released a list of the top 10 premium downloads from the PlayStation Store for 2009.

1) Call of Duty: World at War Map Pack 1
2) Call of Duty: World at War Map Pack 2
3) Call of Duty: World at War Map Pack 3
4) FIFA 09 Gold Pack
5) Final Fantasy VII (PS3/PSP)
6) Battlefield 1943
7) Fat Princess
8) MARVEL VS CAPCOM 2
9) Flower
10) Mortal Kombat II

Looks like people answered the Call of Duty ... by opening up their wallets. Undoubtedly, Modern Warfare 2 DLC is likely to top 2010's sales figures. Finally, Battlefield 1943 claims the award for top PSN game of the year, besting the PSN-exclusive Fat Princess.

You know what we want for Christmas? A more interesting Xbox Live Activity top ten to write about. Just as it did the week of Nov. 9, the Call of Duty franchise has held up three of the top five slots this week, with Halo 3 in second place and Grand Theft Auto IV taking the spot formerly held by the Left 4 Dead 2 demo.

As hard as we might wish for a shakeup in the new year, we're not sure what title's going to be the one to do it. Surely we won't see four CoD games in the top five in 2010. Surely.

What do you give your copy of Call of Duty: World at War for Christmas? Activision has solved that tough shopping challenge by bundling all of the game's downloadable maps into one attractive package. The Call of Duty: World at War Map Pack Bundle features "the complete collection of nine multiplayer maps and three co-op Zombie maps from Call of Duty: World at War Map Packs 1-3," for $24.99 on PS3 or 2000 on Xbox 360, five dollars off the combined prices of all three packs.

It's available now in North America, but won't be home for Christmas in Europe, with a release date of January 7. But let's be realistic here: your game doesn't know when Christmas is, so you can be a bit late with gifts.

There's "No Russian" Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 off the top spot on the UK sales charts. Infinity Ward's mega-hit is killin' terrorists, civilians and retail at a solid tick, despite the seven percent sales drop from the prior week. The FPS has held the high ground for four weeks now, repelling solid competition from the footie fantasies of FIFA 10 and the hidden blades of Assassin's Creed 2.

Call of Duty: World at War maintained the number one position on the charts last year for five weeks, before FIFA 09 rushed the goal and scored the top spot during Christmas week. Thanks to retail promotions, game of the year candidate Batman: Arkham Asylum sales surged 122 percent, bringing the Dark Knight back onto the chart in the twenty spot.

Source -- Call of Duty still in command at No1 [Chart Track]
Source -- All formats chart [Chart Track]

Seriously, guys? Everyone on the planet runs out and buys Modern Warfare 2 and you're still playing Call of Duty 4 and World at War? We can understand you folks who chose to play Halo 3 -- the whole Modern Warfare 2 experience may not be your idea of a good time -- but Major Nelson's Xbox Live activity chart for the week of November 9 simply vexes us.

In less puzzling news, the XBLA activity is along the lines of something we're used to seeing. Trials HD remains atop the list, followed by Castle Crashers and South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play. Konami's Zombie Apocalypse also managed to survive the gauntlet and make its way onto the list and, combined with the recent release of Left 4 Dead 2, we feel mankind is finally starting to reach acceptable levels of preparation for the inevitable future of a world plagued by the undead.

Look, just feign surprise, it makes these financial posts so much more exciting: Activision today reported net revenues of $755 million (on a non-GAAP basis) in the quarter ending September 30, 2009 -- that's $55 million more than the suits hoped to stack, according to previous projections. While the blockbuster adaptation of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen might have played a part in this outpouring of our money, we're gonna go with Kotick's explanation: "Our performance was driven by positive audience response to Activision Publishing's Guitar Hero 5, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, and the Guitar Hero and Call of Duty franchises, as well as Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft."

In fact, the CEO called Guitar Hero the year's "#1 best-selling third-party franchise in North America and Europe" through September, claiming that U.S. sales of music games increased 72 percent year over year in September. Last year's big-band-box edition, World Tour, and Call of Duty: World at War combined for total, world domination, becoming this year's "#1 and #2 best-selling third-party titles" in North America and Europe through September, according to Activision. Additionally, World at War DLC map pack sales continued to climb last quarter and have now surpassed 7.5 million purchases.

Needless to say, the publisher is not backing off of its prior financial outlook. Activision anticipates annual net revenues of $4.5 billion (on a non-GAAP basis) at the close of the year. Did you remember to feign surprise?

Looks like this deal isn't just for Xbox 360 owners. Activision has slashed the price of the World at War map packs. As Richard noted, "it's just a cash grab before Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 makes everyone forget World at War, but hey, it's hard to argue with cheap."

In addition to this sale, all World at War servers will feature double XP. If you want to partake in giving Activision even more money, you better hurry up: this deal ends on November 1st.

Remember the report that said the average Call of Duty: World at War player has spent $9 on DLC? It looks like that number is about to get just a bit higher, as Major Nelson has announced that all of the World at War map packs have been reduced to 400 ($5). That's half of the usual $10 price tag. Taking all three packs together, that's 12 maps for $15, putting them at a buck and a quarter each. Not bad. If you want to snag 'em on the cheap, you have until November 1.

Sure, it's probably just a cash grab before Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 makes everyone forget World at War, but hey, it's hard to argue with cheap. Browse the available World at War DLC right here.

If there were any doubt left in your mind that Call of Duty is a popular franchise, a recent report from Gamasutra should firmly cement the fact in your mind. According to the piece, Call of Duty: World at War's three DLC packs digitally pushed 6.5 million units between March and mid-August of 2009 across the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles.

As you might imagine, those kind of numbers add up to a lot of extra revenue for the mega-publisher – the piece approximates a cool $45 million. Taking that one step further, the average cost of each box of CoD: WaW sold at retail becomes $65. We're not sure if that number accounts for the chunk taken out by Microsoft and Sony respectively for distribution, but even cut in half that's still a nice chunk of change.

So today, we'd like to officially announce that we're changing the site's name to Call of Duty: Joystiq. Call it a strategic business move – it's all about brand recognition, people!

Update: To be clear, the $45 million number is an approximation by Gamasutra, put together with information from NPD, EEDAR, and Activision PR. It was apparently calculated by taking 65% of 7 million units at $10 a piece, without accounting for giveaways or bundles.

Major Nelson has revealed the latest figures for Xbox Live activity, which once again sees Call of Duty: World at War being the most played Xbox 360 Live title. That's not to say it's all business as usual, as the Lost Planet 2 co-op demo managed to claw its way onto the list, along with a new Xbox Live Arcade pair, Shadow Complex and Trials HD.

Both titles made it onto the top two spots on XBLA's most played list, with Chair's Metroid-inspired adventure making its debut in first place. The remainder is comprised of usual suspects Battlefield 1943, Marvel vs Capcom 2 and 'Splosion Man.

In a very unsurprising turn of events, Activision has announced that the third downloadable map pack for Call of Duty: World at War was downloaded over one million times during its first weekend of availability (August 6 - 9). That figure is derived from both Xbox 360 and PS3 downloads. The console war doesn't impede the progress of real war! Real war in the ... game, we guess. That could have been phrased more cleverly.

Activision also revealed that all of the game's combined DLC has been downloaded a whopping 6.5 million times, which, based on the price of each pack, comes out to around $65,000,000. It's easy when you just have to multiply by ten!

Guys, do you ever play anything aside from four games? Major Nelson reports that last week's Xbox Live activity was very much the same as the week before ... and the week before that. Taking top spot was none other than Call of Duty: World at War, followed by usual suspects Halo 3, Call of Duty 4 and Gears of War 2. Madden 10 took last place, which isn't much of a surprise considering it released on Friday. Come next week, we're sure you'll be hearing more about that one.

On the XBLA side, it was all about Trials HD, as the title earned top honors. Turtles in Time Re-Shelled managed to shell shock the competition by taking second and DICE's Battlefield 1943 continues its sad story of decline, falling to third. Well, okay -- maybe it's not a sad story, per se.

If you're already a follower of our Twitter account, you'd know that we're giving away a boatload of codes for Call of Duty: World at War DLC Map Pack 3 on both 360 and PS3. We're going to be doing more throughout the day and next time we do a similar offering, we may not even warn you with a post on the site, so you'll probably want to start following our Twitter feed.

Heck, we may even give away a copy of Trials HD today. Who knows? Also, you might want to become a fan of ours on Facebook. Just sayin'.