20 million Skylanders figures fuel Activision’s Winter Earnings

 

Where THQ's earnings call showed a company in crisis mode, Activision's call confirms their financial dominance of the industry. Here are some highlights:

Skylanders is a big hit with children (at heart)

Activision has been the home of two of the biggest money-making powerhouses in video gaming — World of Warcraft and Call of Duty — for a while now. This earnings call cemented toy line/videogame hybrid Skylanders as their next big cash cow. Children bought 20 million of the Skylanders figures that players use to interact with the game.

World of Warcraft will see new content soon, hopefully abates the steady decline in players

A few more players left Blizzard's genre-defining MMO World of Warcraft last quarter. The number of active subscribers went from 11.4 million to 10.2 million over 4 months. While their player base has been steadily declining since last year's World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, Activision seems confident that this years expansion, Mists of Pandaria, will revitalize fans. A press event for Mists of Pandaria will be held next month.

Diablo 3 delayed again, and other Blizzard news

Blizzard has delayed long-awaited RPG Diablo 3 again from its vague, "early 2012" target to an even more murky, "Q2 2012" release date. Q2 2012 ends in June, but Blizzard could let the date slip even further in their quest for perfection. The Diablo 3 beta (which I've been playing for the past few weeks) has proven valuable for Blizzard. Feedback from testers of the game is allowing them to make a lot of key gameplay changes, resulting in this recent delay.

In other Blizzard news, Activision expects two games from the company this year. One of those will likely be Mists of Pandaria, while the other will hopefully be Diablo 3. There is also the Zerg-centric Starcraft 2 expansion, "Heart of the Swarm" that could see release this year, but there was no mention of the real-time strategy franchise.

Bungie's new game is so totally awesome that we can't tell you about it

Activision spared no expense in talking up the new game from Halo creators Bungie. Activision dug deep into their collection of hyperbole, calling the still-secret game "genre-defining" and "key for the company." Did Activision or Bungie tell us what it is? Nope.

Call of Duty is still popular

Military shooter Call of Duty is still the most popular franchise in gaming. December 2011 saw 40 million people playing the last five games in the series. Call of Duty Elite, the online stat tracking service that debuted with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, is one of the fastest-growing online services in gaming history. To no one's surprise, Activision confirmed that there will be another Call of Duty game releasing this year.