NVIDIA made a public-release of its FaceWorks tech-demo, which was a centerpiece at its GDC 2013 booth, this March. The demo, which uses the same Digital Ira light-stage source material as a similar tech-demo by Activision, demonstrates the GPU's ability to handle complex facial expressions. The light-stage material was captured at the Institute for Creative Technology at the University of Southern California (USC).

Drawing life-like facial expressions that leap over the uncanny valley, is easier said than done. NVIDIA's GDC demo required the graphics processing power of a GeForce GTX TITAN. The demo appears to take advantage of DirectX 11 and NVIDIA CUDA, and is built for the Windows platform. The demo is made publicly available, filed under the "Cool Stuff" section of NVIDIA website.DOWNLOAD: Digital Ira Tech-Demo by NVIDIA

Activision Publishing, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, Inc., announced today that Call of Duty: Black Ops II has crossed the $1 billion mark in worldwide retail sales, according to Chart-Track retail customer sell-through information and internal company estimates. Illustrating the strong appeal of interactive entertainment to audiences worldwide, the game achieved this milestone in just 15 days after its launch on November 13, 2012. Last year's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 reached $1 billion in retail sales in 16 days. The box office record set for feature films in 2009 by "Avatar" was $1 billion in 17 days.

"The release of Call of Duty has been one of the most significant entertainment events of each of the last six years," said Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard. "Since Call of Duty was launched, cumulative franchise revenues from players around the world are greater than current worldwide box office receipts to date for the top-10 grossing films of 2012 combined. Life-to-date sales for the Call of Duty franchise have exceeded worldwide theatrical box office receipts for 'Harry Potter' and 'Star Wars,' the two most successful movie franchises of all time."

Activision Publishing, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, Inc., today announced that for the fourth consecutive year, the Call of Duty franchise has delivered the biggest entertainment launch of the year. The highly-anticipated Call of Duty: Black Ops II has achieved an estimated sell-through of more than $500 million worldwide in the first 24 hours of its release, according to Chart-Track, retail customer sell-through information and internal company estimates.

"With first day sales of over half a billion dollars worldwide, we believe Call of Duty is the biggest entertainment launch of the year for the fourth year in a row," said Bobby Kotick, CEO, Activision Blizzard, Inc. "Life-to-date sales for the Call of Duty franchise have exceeded worldwide theatrical box office receipts for "Harry Potter" and "Star Wars," the two most successful movie franchises of all time. Given the challenged macro-economic environment, we remain cautious about the balance of 2012 and 2013."

The wait is over. The groundbreaking Call of Duty: Black Ops II is now available at retail locations across the globe. The highly-anticipated sequel to the best-selling Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 console game in history has been called "the most ambitious Call of Duty ever," pushing the boundaries of the blockbuster franchise to new heights by propelling players into a world full of advanced weaponry, robotics and drone technology in the year 2025. Call of Duty: Black Ops II, which has shattered pre-order records set last year by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, is on its way to a historic launch, and is poised to usher in a new era for the 30-million Call of Duty fans worldwide with a host of new innovations to deliver the complete gaming experience. Providing great value to the Call of Duty community, starting today Activision's Call of Duty Elite services for Call of Duty: Black Ops II are free, providing fans with deeply integrated features, including Clan Operations, Zombies Leaderboards and more.

Nintendo has great news for gift seekers looking to keep their loved ones entertained and energized this holiday season. Starting Nov. 4, consumers in the United States will be able to choose from two new Wii bundles, each containing a Wii console and one of two new games from Nintendo's third-party partners. One bundle includes Ubisoft's Just Dance 4 and a white Wii console with matching Wii Remote Plus and Nunchuk controllers, offered while supplies last at a suggested retail price of $129.99. The other bundle includes Activision's Skylanders Giants, a blue Wii console with matching Wii Remote Plus and Nunchuk controllers, one Portal of Power, two Skylanders characters and one exclusive Giant Skylander, available while supplies last at a suggested retail price of $149.99.

Turtle Beach, pioneers and market-leaders of the gaming headset category, is pleased to unveil its new fall lineup at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). Turtle Beach has created a 6,000 square foot both that will showcase new products and a dedicated theater showcase featuring an immersive audio experience. In addition, Turtle Beach will also underscore its commitment to competitive gaming by offering attendees a tournament showcase. The tournament area, theater experience and full line of gaming audio products are available via its E3 booth; Los Angeles Convention Center South Hall #2447, from June 5 - 7, 2012.

The Turtle Beach Ear Force theater experience offers E3 attendees a unique and innovative audio presentation to demonstrate the importance of audio in the gaming experience. Through a custom system utilizing a 270-degree screen, three projectors and headset integration the presentation highlights Turtle Beach's advanced audio. As always, hundreds of Turtle Beach headsets will be powering the audio experiences for visitors to numerous E3 booths, including Activision, 2K Games, Warner Brothers, Konami, Project (RED), Snapdragon, Bethesda, Gameloft and many others.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 doesn't need a brand new game engine to improve the graphics over previous games in the series, Treyarch has insisted. Black Ops 2 is built using the latest, most advanced version of the engine that Call of Duty developers have used to build the first-person shooter series since 2005's Call of Duty 2: a heavily modified version of the id Tech 3 engine. Some fans have called on Activision to invest in a brand new graphics engine in order to spruce up Call of Duty's visuals. But Treyarch chief Mark Lamia said continuing to upgrade the current engine was enough to meet the development team's design goals. "People always ask me, 'Is this a new engine?' he told One of Swords. "I liken it to people who live in an older house that has been remodelled. Just because you're remodelling the house and it will look new or it will have a new kitchen, you don't tear out the foundation, or break out some of the framing. You might even go as hardcore as replacing the plumbing, and we will do that sort of thing, as an analogy. It's a gross simplification, but it's one way to say that. There's a lot of good still in that foundation that you wouldn't get rid of, and we don't. We look to advance in the areas that support our game design.

"Engines, each time they get touched, they change. The creators alter them; they don't modify what they don't need to, and then they alter what they need to. You can't make a competitive product if you're not upgrading that engine along the way." He added: "I think the whole thing about a new engine... sometimes that's a great buzzword. Well, I have a new graphics engine - is that a new engine? Where does it start and stop? Elements of the code, you can trace back for a very, very long time... but whole parts of the code are entirely new. Two areas we did focus on for this game were the graphics and the lighting - a pretty significant amount of work is going into that."When Activision announced Black Ops 2 earlier this month it promised a "visual overhaul", with graphical upgrades a mix of "tech and technique". In a demo to press played on an Xbox 360 build of the game, an unpopulated level set on Socotra Island in Yemen showed HDR lighting, bounce lighting, self-shadowing and a new texture technique called reveal mapping - all running at 60 frames per second.

Activision is already going at it in court with Jason West and Vince Zampella over their dismissal from Infinity Ward in 2009, but a clause in a Memorandum of Understanding filed with the lost wages and royalties suit in 2010 could affect the recently announced Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. According to Game Informer, Activision continues to hold the rights to the Call of Duty franchise, but Call of Duty games set in "modern day (post Vietnam), the near future or distant future" would be retained by Infinity Ward. With Black Ops 2 set in 2025, developer Treyarch put a lot of thought in the futuristic setting. An intellectual property attorney said that, if West and Zampella win their suit, Activision could be forced to pull the game, but a more likely scenario is money damages awarded by the court.

However, clause 4(D) at the end of the memorandum specifically states that if IW management (Ward and Zampella) are no longer employed by Activision, then the terms of the memorandum are no longer in effect. This seems to override any potential problem, but it is yet another issue that the court must rule on. With Black Ops 2 setting pre-order records, the game could be a cash cow for Activision. A ruling against the publishing giant, though, could mean West and Zampella would get prime cuts of that cow if the employment clause is not enforced.

While the Cold War, assassination attempts at President Kennedy, and over the top action filled the premise of the 2010 smash hit Call of Duty: Black Ops; unmanned aerial weaponry, often autonomous, will fill up Black Ops II, Activision's autumn-winter blockbuster. The worldwide reveal trailer mentions the campaign's storyline to take place in 2025, the future, when there's huge proliferation of unmanned weaponry (≠ robots, so no conflict with the Terminator universe), and that the "keys" (control over these machines) fell into the wrong hands (and the US stopped making kill-switches for its military equipment). The game promises some pretty over the top action over futuristic settings, some of which remind us of Syndicate (which is set even further into the future).The Worldwide Reveal Trailer follows.

Pre-order cards of Call of Duty: Black Ops II being sold by retail chain Target ended up revealing its release date to be 13th November, 2012. Developed by Treyarch for Activision, Black Ops II is the 9th game in the Call of Duty franchise, and a sequel to the 2010 title Call of Duty: Black Ops, which is among the most commercially-successful video games in history. A reveal trailer of the game is expected to be posted tomorrow.

This year's addition to the Call of Duty franchise is going to be Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, a sequel to the 2010 game developed by Treyarch. A source among retailers leaked a poster to Kotaku, which flashes a date, 05-02-12, along with a caption that reads "Return for Debriefing". Kotaku predicts that the date on the poster is more likely a reveal date than a release date. On a reveal date, Activision could post a reveal trailer of the game, along with sketchy information about the premise of the game's single-player campaign.

ShackNews is reporting Activision Blizzard is being sued by Worlds Inc., for violating a patent on virtual worlds. The firm claims that games like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft violate its patent, and are requesting "fair compensation." The patent covers a "system and method for enabling users to interact in a virtual space," reports Games Industry International. That may sound broad, but the company did manage to get an undisclosed settlement out of NCSoft for City of Heroes in 2010. "Technologies created by Worlds have helped the businesses of virtual worlds gaming and the sale of virtual goods to grow into a multi-billion dollar industry," said Worlds CEO Thom Kidrin. "While we are pleased to see that the gaming industry and its rapidly growing customer base have enthusiastically embraced our patented technologies, we deserve fair compensation for their use." No response yet from Activision Blizzard.

It 'tis the season of rumors and assumptions for this years winter time blockbusters. According to Computer and Video Games, the following information, claiming to reveal the game's release date and a load of multiplayer features, was first posted on the official Black Ops forums in a thread that was later taken down, and its cached version is unavailable. It was then reposted in another thread on Activision's forums, which was also killed off by the publisher, but its cache remains available (via MP1st). None of this information is confirmed, but there's no reason it couldn't be genuine as it all sounds feasible. The list is full of new modes but makes no mention of a new game engine.

Apparently round one goes to Activision in the royal rumble between them and Infinity Ward founders and now ex-employees Jason West and Vincent Zampella over owed royalties. One of the two fraud charges levelled at Activision by former employees and Infinity Ward founders Jason West and Vincent Zampella has been dismissed by a US court. The remarkable story of the corporate fallout between Activision and the development pair began in March 2010 when it was revealed that the publisher had both men frog marched out of the Infinity Ward offices. Several employees quit the developer amidst the mud slinging and bitterness of the dispute, with Activision later deciding to sue EA over the whole ordeal. Why EA? Well, claims were made that both West and Zampella were already in bed with Activision's arch rival long before the waters become turbulent. The fact that West and Zampella's new studio, Respawn Entertainment, signed a publishing deal with EA probably didn't help much either.

Once the dust had settled both sides laid bare their claims. Activision argues that the pair had already planned a defection to EA whilst still working on Modern Warfare 2. It currently wants $400m in compensation from EA. West and Zampella, meanwhile, say that they were sacked to save Activision the pain of paying them bonuses and royalties owed to them. Back in the present Activision's success in convincing State Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle to dismiss one of the fraud claims levelled against it is a success, for sure, but it's not enough to stop everyone being dragged into court on May 7th.

Apparently the war between the original creators of the Call of Duty franchise and Activision is going in front of a jury. The big "he said, the monolithic corporation said" video games kerfuffle of 2010, the fallout from Infinity Ward co-founders Jason West and Vincent Zampella leaving Activision then signing up with Electronic Arts, is indeed going to trial. On Wednesday, a California Superior Court judge denied EA's motion for summary judgement on the complex lawsuit, as well as one from West and Zampella, meaning the big Call of Duty mess will go before a jury next year.

Activision Publishing, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI), announced today that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 crossed the $1 billion mark in sales since its launch on November 8, 2011, according to Charttrack and retail customer sell-through information. Highlighting the trend of interactive entertainment gaining a greater hold of audiences worldwide, the game achieved this milestone in just 16 days, eclipsing the record set in 2009 by the feature film "Avatar," which reached the $1 billion milestone in 17 days.

While 2011 box office revenue is on the decline - down 4 percent this year at $9.4 billion, compared with $9.8 billion in 2010 -- the number of people purchasing and participating in gaming is on the rise, with no sign of slowing.(1) With more than 30 million gamers, the Call of Duty community now exceeds the combined populations of the cities of New York, London, Tokyo, Paris and Madrid.

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.