At its fourth quarter earnings call today, Activision has confirmed, unsurprisingly, that a new Call of Duty game will be released later this year – the ninth such title, excluding spin-offs and compilations, in the most successful game series of all time.
No details of the next release have been revealed. Some speculate it may be known as Black Ops 2 but a new title would seem more likely.
Last year’s title, Modern Warfare 3, was the highest grossing game ever, generating revenues of $775 million in its first five days alone.
Titles in the Call of Duty series are played by 40 million unique gamers every month, with half of these playing Modern Warfare 3 alone.
Activision also announced that Call of Duty Elite, the company’s social service aimed at complementing online game-play, has signed up seven million subscribers since launching late last year.
Call of Duty Elite provides both a free and a subscription-based service. Around 21% of Elite’s subscribers pay up to $49.99 per year to avail of the latest downloadable game content. This sort of post game-release income helped Activision earn an extra $1.6 billion in 2011, and represented 34% of their overall profits for the year.