While the Modern Warfare 3 launch has got off pretty smoothly overall with few technical glitches and made Activision a shed-load of money, it seems that some XBOX 360 players are not so lucky. g4tv.com reports that there is a "A 14-page thread on Xbox.com points to multiple XBOX 360 gamers getting similar disc read errors from the game." The general symptoms seem to be that the console will either not read the disc at all, or starts, but then falls over flat on its face with an ungainly crash a little while later. While many posters have suggested solutions, there doesn't appear to be a definitive fix. Therefore, the best course of action for this problem is to return the disc to the retailer and ask for a replacement.

Finally, If you're a console gamer, then this of course serves you right for not being a PC gamer and enjoying the benefit of superior hardware. It should also be noted that the PC version comes as a download on the Steam online network. This eliminates any DVD read issues as there's no DVD (the installation disc in the retail version can be ignored) and also greatly improves loading times both at the start and during level changes, since it loads from the hard disc.

Today, we brought you the depressing news that Activision are unlikely to bring the Call of Duty social network called Elite, to the PC platform, despite all their loyal PC gamers, who have bought every iteration of the game going and in particular helped them achieve their blockbuster sales of $400M last week. This delight came courtesy of this tweet:

@thejuggz We are working towards a universal Elite experience but we cannot guarantee if or when a version will be available for the PC.

Well, what do you know, but it looks like Elite is coming to the PC platform after all. Yes, you heard that right. In a tweet a while later, Activision claim to have "misspoken", like this:

We misspoke. Our goal has always been to provide a free PC offering for ELITE. Stay tuned for an update as timing is still being determined.

So PC gamers will at least get the free version. Fantastic. Still second class, but better than nothing. Probably best to keep a close eye on those tweets and a sceptical outlook on this one until it happens. You couldn't make this stuff up.

Shattering its own day-one sales records, Activision Publishing, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, announced that its highly-anticipated Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has become the biggest entertainment launch ever with an estimated sell-through of more than $400 million and more than 6.5 million units in North America and the United Kingdom alone in the first 24 hours of its release, according to Charttrack and retail customer sell-through information.

This marks the third consecutive year that the Call of Duty franchise has set day one launch records across all forms of entertainment, something no other entertainment franchise in any medium has ever accomplished. Last year, in North America and the United Kingdom , Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops had estimated day-one sell-through of $360 million and in 2009, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, set day-one records with estimated sell through of $310 million, according to Charttrack and retail customer sell-through information.

On November 8, 2011, millions of fans attended more than 13,000 midnight openings at retail stores worldwide. According to Microsoft, after just two days, the number of gamers playing simultaneously on Xbox Live set a new peak concurrency record.

BF3 and MW3 are both being released at nearly the same time, just a couple of weeks apart. Since they both target the same high-end gaming audience, there's going to be some very stiff competition indeed between the two games. What's interesting is the chest-beating that Patrick Liu, producer of developer DICE, is doing. He believes that BF3 will take on and make a severe dent in market share for MW3, although he admits that Activision will be hard to push aside:"From what I've seen of Modern Warfare 3 it looks great, as usual. I think we're going to put a huge dent, so to speak, in [Activision's] market, but they're a behemoth. It's not easy to move them... although I believe that we have already done that, with Battlefield 3's campaign so far. But at the same time, from a developer standpoint, we really focus on creating our own game and making the best that we can. We set the bar quite high for ourselves, and that's usually the biggest challenge for us." From the looks of it though, it looks like he wanted to set it even higher, but it would have taken too much time:"I know that the game is never actually done - we can always improve the game. We have lots of ideas on how to improve this, so if we could we would push Battlefield 3 back a year or two maybe. But that wouldn't make any sense. So the biggest challenge is really our own requirements for ourselves." Who wins the battle of the ratings remains to be seen.

Turtle Beach, pioneers and market-leaders of the gaming headset category, today announced a partnership with Activision to develop a new line of exclusively licensed, limited edition Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Ear Force headsets, custom-optimized to deliver enhanced experiences for the year's most anticipated entertainment launch. Among many planned features, these new premium headsets will be distinguished by unique sets of audio presets designed specifically by the audio teams at developers Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games in order to provide the ultimate immersion into the cinematic world of Modern Warfare 3.

The headsets will be available with compatibility across Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC; with multiple feature sets, special packages with bonus content, and price points to ensure that no player is left behind.

The newest addition to the Call of Duty (COD) franchise, Call of Duty: World at War, has outsold the first week sales of Call of Duty 4 by greater than 200%. This title is all set to become Christmas number one, and has gone to the top of the All Formats charts in the UK, according to data from GfK Chart-Track.

The figures are rough, and GfK Chart-Track didn't provide a per-platform breakdown, to provide how the game is being received by different platforms. COD: World at War added more console platform support, with Sony PS2 and Nintendo DS over its predecessor.

World of Warcraft (WoW), the largest MMORPG, is fun. People have gone lengths and breadths to achieve higher in the game. Those endless hours of playing it comes at a cost, the WoW subscription. But once you reach a high level (say 70), and own lot of gold, and basically have all achievements under your belt, your inclination to play the game retards. The fact that you have to pay to keep your subscription alive only makes it worse. For you, it means that you're bored, WoW isn't fun anymore, and so you could join another MMORPG. For Blizzard (now Activision-Blizzard), it means losing revenue. Not that they're short of it, but no company would want to lose it.

In what can be seen as a bid to woo such players and maintain their patronage, new achievement levels have been added to the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King Expansion pack. Similar to the achievements you have with console gaming, players will now be awarded titles, gear, bragging rights for several tasks, serious thru trivial. They can be as serious as defeating scores and scores of enemies or as trivial as getting a hair-cut done. Custom animations and sounds would accompany each achievement earned and in-game pets, special clothing and titles will also be awarded. According to Blizzard, these rewards will be "purely cosmetic" and won't affect actual gameplay.

The 'newly-wed' Activision-Blizzard is reportedly planning a music store and content delivery service to directly compete with Apple's iTunes service. For now nothing is even close to concrete, Activision-Blizzard is considering launching its own download store on its Guitar Hero game platform for now. Says CEO Robert Kotick: "When you think about the potential for what we will be able to do together, there have not been many viable alternatives to iTunes." in an interview to Reuters. He adds: "If you're downloading a song to play on your 'Guitar Hero,' there's no reason why you can't download the performance also. So there's all kinds of things you can think about."

Vivindi currently owns the World's largest music publication company, Universal Music. This could serve as a content source for this delivery platform.

Publisher Activision today announced that its merger with Blizzard Entertainment parent company Vivendi Games has been approved by the board of shareholders, and the transaction is expected to officially close today, July the 9th. The new company, dubbed Activision-Blizzard, is valued at roughly US $18.9 billion.

Activision and Vivendi Games will combine their businesses through the merger of a newly formed, wholly-owned subsidiary of Activision with and into Vivendi Games. As a result of the merger, Vivendi Games, the parent company of Blizzard Entertainment and Sierra, will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Activision. Vivendi will receive approximately 295.3 million newly issued shares of Activision common stock. Concurrently with the merger, Vivendi will purchase approximately 62.9 million newly issued shares of Activision common stock at a price of $27.50 per share for a total of approximately $1.7 billion in cash, resulting in a total Vivendi ownership stake in Activision Blizzard of approximately 52% on a fully diluted basis and approximately 54% of shares outstanding. As of the closing of the transaction, Activision will be renamed Activision Blizzard and will continue to operate as a public company traded on NASDAQ under the ticker ATVI.

Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Activision Blizzard, Inc. is a worldwide pure-play online and console game publisher with leading market positions across all categories of the rapidly growing interactive entertainment software industry.

Activision made announcement today that it is working on a new Guitar Hero: Aerosmith game built around the legendary music of America's Greatest Rock 'N Roll Band: Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Brad Whitford, Tom Hamilton and Joey Kramer. Slated for release this June, this latest installment puts players in the shoes of Perry (guitar), Whitford (guitar) and Hamilton (bass), as they rock out alongside frontman Tyler and drummer Kramer. Guitar Hero: Aerosmith is being developed by Neversoft Entertainment for the Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3 entertainment systems. The Wii version is being developed by Vicarious Visions, while the PlayStation 2 game is being made by Budcat. To mark the announcement, Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock owners will have the opportunity to download Aerosmith's Dream On song for free from February 16-18 on Xbox LIVE Marketplace for the Xbox 360. "We are extremely excited that Aerosmith chose to team up with Guitar Hero, bringing one of the world's all-time best-selling artists together with one of the biggest video game brands, to deliver a new and unique interactive way for our customers to connect with artists and their music," said Dusty Welch, head of publishing for Activision/RedOctane.

The incredibly lucrative, popular and successful Guitar Hero franchise, at this point owned by Activision, left gamers happy and craving an encore. Activision is more than happy to provide it, and confirmed a Guitar Hero IV before Guitar Hero III was even out the door. Activision, at this point, has no comment about what exactly is in Guitar Hero IV, other than the fact that it will be there. Fortunately, there are other ways of attaining such information as who will be in Guitar Hero IV. UK band "The Answer" recently posted a press release boasting the honor of one of their songs being in the fourth Guitar Hero. According to the press release, The Answer's single "Never Too Late" will be featured somewhere in the game, which should be released by the end of this year, if everything goes well. If not, well, there's always next year. We'll keep you posted.

Publisher Activision today announced its intention to release new downloadable multiplayer maps for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 4. The content packs should arrive this spring. No mention of pricing, map details, or a PC release was made in the statement.

We're excited about the new maps, and the added gameplay variety, and we can't wait to wrap things up and get online with everyone,

said Infinity Ward community manager Robert Bowling.

Activision's Guitar Hero franchise has set an industry record, surpassing $1 billion in North American retail sales in just 26 months, according to The NPD Group. Additionally, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock was the #1 title in units and dollars for calendar year 2007, making it the best-selling video game of all time in a single calendar year. Since its initial release in fall 2005, the Guitar Hero franchise has sold in excess of 14 million units in North America alone, according to The NPD Group. In 10 weeks since the game's launch, consumers have already downloaded more than five million songs. "Guitar Hero is one of the biggest brands and one of the most powerful distribution platforms in all of entertainment today," said Michael Griffith, President and Chief Executive Officer, Activision Publishing, Inc. "Guitar Hero's popularity with broad audiences is a confirmation that video games have become a true mass medium."

According to this press release, the France-based Vivendi has secured a $5.13 billion loan to help in part with its upcoming Vivendi Games merger deal with Activision to form Activision Blizzard. Part of the loan will also help Vivendi with another financial deal unrelated to the Activision merger.

Activision was the number one U.S. console and handheld publisher for calendar 2007, according to The NPD Group. The company increased its market share for the year to a record 17.7%, a 7.2% increase over the same period last year. Additionally, Guitar Hero was the best-selling franchise in the U.S. for the full calendar year and Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, which was released on October 28, was the #1 title across all platforms in both units and dollars, according to The NPD Group. For the month of December, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare were the #1 and #3 best-selling titles respectively in dollars across all platforms, according to The NPD Group. Robert Kotick, Chairman and CEO of Activision commented, "For the first time in our history, we were the #1 U.S. publisher for the calendar year. We are well on our way to delivering sixteen years of record revenue growth and by far our most profitable year ever."

Aspyr Media announced today they will publish Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for Mac. Developed by Infinity Ward and licensed by Activision, the Mac version is expected to be available in May 2008.

Featuring a tense storyline, filled with plot twists, the title thrusts players into battle like never before. With amazing special effects, including rim-lighting, depth of field, texture streaming and character self-shadowing, players are enlisted into one of the most photo-realistic gaming experiences imaginable.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for Mac will soon be available for preorder through Aspyr's website for 49.99. For more information, fans can also visit the official CoD4 website.

Developer Infinity Ward has just released the 1.4 patch for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The changes are as follows:

• "Winter Crash", a holiday version of Multiplayer map "Crash"
• Improvements to the server browser
• Fixed some rare bullet accuracy issues for all weapons.
• For server admins: fixed user ban list not working correctly on servers. Ban.txt will be created in the main or fs_game directory

You can download the patch from here.

Hot on the heels of the bad blood surrounding the blocked Rock Band patch and an impending lawsuit from the Romantics comes more bad news for Activision. According to Wired's Game|Life, the company has just been hit with a class action lawsuit over the issue of the Wii version of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock's mono soundtrack. Activision has already gone on record as being aware of the whole monaural problem of course, and promised to fix the problem by mailing out remastered game discs to all affected parties sometime in early 2008. "We are currently working with Nintendo" says the company "and are planning to issue an improved audio experience in future versions of the game," said the company. "We will be offering consumers replacement discs at no cost once they become available. We thank all of our customers for their support and patience." That's not good enough however for Samuel Livingston of San Diego and KamberEdelson LLC (his legal representation), who are planning on taking Activision to court over the issue. Livingston is seeking "actual damages, individual restitution, equitable relief, civil penalties, costs and expenses of litigation, including attorney's fees, and all further relief available" on behalf of those individuals who "would not have purchased the Guitar Hero III video game and/or paid as much for it had they known the truth about the product."

A number of Wii owners have reported that their new copies of Guitar Hero 3 are only providing a mono output rather than the stereo that is advertised on the box. Activision has responded by saying that it will replace all disks experiencing this problem for free, although it has not given details of the process just yet. Activision's spokesperson, Rhy-Ming Poon said:

We recently became aware that some consumers have not been able to enjoy the full audio output in the Nintendo Wii version of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. We expect to have re-mastered discs available by early 2008 and we will be offering consumers replacement discs at no cost once they become available.

So if you are affected by this problem, it may be worth sending Activision an email and keeping an eye on its website to find out how you can get your copy replaced.

Developer Infinity Ward has just released the 1.3 patch for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

This patch addresses the issue reported by community member Uzi Kidding which now catches some files bypassing the pure client test. In addition this update will set properties so that Anti-lag is always enabled upon map loads, an optimization for Sniper Rifle accuracty at certain distances, as well a fix so text chat between rounds of multiplayer will no longer cut out at the end. The 1.3 patch will also include all previous fixes from previous patches.

You can download the patch from here.

The recent merger of Activision Blizzard seems to have slowed down neither. While Blizzard announced yesterday that the only thing changing on their side of things was ownership, Activision announced that they're going to immediately begin (or continue) work on new games. Activision is proud to announce that they're hard at work on quite a few games, including "Guitar Hero IV, Call of Duty 5, James Bond, new Tony Hawk, new DreamWorks titles, new Marvel titles and (an) entry into racing with Bizarre." Thanks to the experts at Blizzard, we may see some great games coming from Activision in the future.

Activision and Vivendi today announced that they have signed a definitive agreement to combine Vivendi Games, Vivendi's interactive entertainment business - which includes Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft, the world's #1 multi-player online role-playing game franchise - with Activision, creating the world's largest pure-play online and console game publisher. The new company, Activision Blizzard, is expected to have approximately $3.8 billion in pro forma combined calendar 2007 revenues and the highest operating margins of any major third-party video game publisher. On closing of the transaction, Activision will be renamed Activision Blizzard and will continue to operate as a public company traded on NASDAQ under the ticker ATVI.

Starting today gamers can enlist in Activision, Inc.'s Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, a gripping modern-day action-thriller that deploys them into heart-stopping battles across the world's most treacherous hotspots. Developed by Infinity Ward, the game is now available at retail outlets nationwide and delivers unprecedented high-definition graphics, piercing 5.1 surround sound and a dynamic community-oriented multiplayer experience. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is available now on Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system for a suggested retail price of $59.99; the Windows PC version for $49.99. Also available for Nintendo DS, developed by n-Space and carries a suggested retail price of $29.99. Gamers also have the option to enhance the experience with a Limited Collector's Edition for the Xbox 360 and Windows PC. Each Collector's Edition includes a special hardcover book featuring never-before-seen imagery and artwork. The Xbox 360 version carries a suggested retail price of $69.99 and also features a bonus DVD exploring the British S.A.S. behind-the-scenes footage from developer, Infinity Ward. The Windows PC edition has a suggested retail price of $59.99 and includes a digital copy of the BradyGAMES Official Strategy Guide.

Furthering its commitment to bring high definition sound to next-generation video games, Activision has come to an agreement with Audiokinetic to integrate the WaveWorks Interactive Sound Engine (Wwise) into select titles across the company's global development studios. The Wwise technology will allow Activision to streamline audio production across multiple platforms, enhance sound and music interactivity, and deliver a more immersive, higher fidelity audio experience to the company's next-generation titles. Activision claims that this partnership will dramatically improve the quality of audio in their feature console video games.

Our partnership with Audiokinetic will allow us to overcome many of the technical difficulties in managing the production pipeline for audio and will ensure that the sound the consumer hears will be as immersive and interactive as the sound designer intended it.

states Adam Levenson, Director of Audio for Activision.

The Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock demo is due to hit Xbox Live Marketplace tomorrow, October 23, In the US. The demo features five songs from the final game and can be played with either the original X-plorer guitar controller or, if you still haven't succumbed to Guitar Hero's charms, a boring old controller. Activision's demo contains the following tracks: Even Flow (by Pearl Jam), Lay Down (by Priestess), The Metal (by Tenacious D), Hit Me with your Best Shot (as made famous by Pat Benatar), Rock You like a Hurricane (as made famous by Scorpions).