Guitar Hero, Call of Duty franchises lead Activision's 'better-than-expected' Q3 2009
by James Ransom-Wiley 
on Nov 5th 2009 5:32PM
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?
