In Activsion Blizzard's Q1 2009 results announced today, the company made no small deal out of the contributions Guitar Hero: World Tour has made to its bottom line for the quarter. Citing figures from the NPD group, Charttrack and Gfk, Activision claimed software sales dominance with GHWT drawing in more money across all platforms than any other title's cumulative earnings for January 1 through March 31 in North America.

Also trumpeted was GHWT's performance on Wii as the console's highest-grossing third-party title in the US and Europe, noting in particular that it was the only third-party release among Wii's top five games in those territories. Sales of the Guitar Hero franchise in general were up 84% year over year in Europe, it said.

Activision CEO Robert Kotick commented during its investors call that the Guitar Hero franchise has reached $2 billion in sales -- only the third to achieve this status -- while bad-mouthing rival Rock Band as experiencing a "rather precipitous drop-off" in sales.

The "We're No. 1!" trend continued as Activision claimed the top PC spot -- a market where it holds three of the top 10 best-selling titles -- with World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart, according to figures provided by Apple, remains the top paid app for iPhone / iPod Touch, though the company didn't clarify whether that is in dollars or copies downloaded. What about Call of Duty? It did well enough to earn a brief mention in the publisher's earning statement, with publishing CEO Mike Griffith announcing that Call of Duty 4 has officially sold 13 million copies worldwide during the investor call. The franchise will likely have a much larger presence in the quarter following Modern Warfare 2's release.

As rumor has it, Chinese internet company NetEase has a totally huge crush on Blizzard. It made its first clear attempt at courtship last August by snatching up the rights to operate Battle.net in China, but a recent press release from Blizzard revealed the company's biggest, Say Anything-esque display of affection to date -- NetEase will be taking over operating duties for World of Warcraft when current operator The9's contract expires June 8.

Of course, if NetEase wanted to win over the hearts of the Chinese MMO-playing population, they'd push for the release of Wrath of the Lich King, which still hasn't dropped in the region. Chinese news site DoNews reports that NetEase has licensed Wrath, though they haven't made any formal announcements regarding its release.

[Via Massively]

The debut of Dawn of War II and F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin did little to hold back the mighty power of the Lich King. NPD has released a list of February's top 20 selling PC games at US retail and, per usual, the World of Warcraft and The Sims 2 are a significant presence.

Just to give an idea of how significant WoW and Sims 2 are in the PC space, nine out of the 20 titles on the list are held by some SKU of those franchises. Check out the full list after the break.

Seriously, who doesn't like skeletons? Well, the Chinese government, as it's citing "skeleton characters" and a "city raid" as two primary reasons for the million World of Warcraft players in China still not receiving Blizzard's latest expansion.

JLM Pacific Epoch reports the Chinese government "has rejected two applications by the second expansion for World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King since China's Spring Festival (January 25 - February 1)." Considering Blizzard has removed "skeleton characters" from WoW in the past and the supposedly gold farmer-free million plus player count for WoW in China, we're willing to bet Blizzard (and its licensing partner in China, The9) will find a way to release Wrath of the Lich King yet.

But seriously China, what's your deal with skeletons?

[Via Massively]

Bobby Kotick and co. got together for the Activision Blizzard earnings report this afternoon and dropped a few numbers on their investors, aside from confirming a mess of games that still haven't officially been announced yet. After reconfirming what we told you a few weeks ago regarding the $1 billion in sales of Guitar Hero III, Kotick went on to note, "In North America, Activision Blizzard was the #1 third-party console and handheld software publisher in dollars for the calendar year, according to The NPD Group."

And how did the company fare during the holiday season? As you might expect, due to releases like Call of Duty: World at War, Guitar Hero: World Tour (which outsold Rock Band 2 at 2:1 in 2008) and a little expansion you may have heard of called Wrath of the Lich King, "Activision Blizzard was the #1 console, handheld and PC publisher in the U.S. and Europe, according to The NPD Group, Charttrack and Gfk." Unfortunately, during a recession like this, even being "the #1 console, handheld and PC publisher in the U.S. and Europe" wasn't enough, with the company losing $72 million in Q4, or 5 cents a share, and announcing a 2009 outlook that falls shy of Wall Street's expectations. Sometimes it's tough being the king.

Blizzard has released its first post-Wrath of the Lich King update for World of Warcraft. There are a plethora of changes, including the much-requested ability to create a Death Knight in any realm, provided you've got a level 55 character tied to your account (prior to this, you needed a level 55 on the same server).

We're not even going to try to delve any further into the patch notes. Instead, we'll kindly point you in the direction of WoW Insider for a full in-depth analysis. If for whatever reason, your auto-updater isn't working, you can download the patch via BigDownload.

Blizzard Entertainment announced today that World of Warcraft has reached 11.5 million subscribers, meaning Azeroth has surpassed the great state of Ohio's population. Clearly people were clamoring to see the Lich King's wrath, as the game's second expansion sold 2.8 million copies in 24 hours, and went on to sell over 4 million copies in its first month.

Blizzard also stated it's currently hiring more staff to keep pace with the game. With all the layoffs going around the industry, hopefully some folks can find a relatively stable job over at Blizzard's compound -- we hear it's made of gold and diamonds.

News

• Level 80 Death Knight solos Zul'Gurub
  Even more old content made trivial by a few extra levels and a new class.
• Dual spec update
  A dev updates us on one of the most awaited features in the game right now.
• Ghostcrawler: Wrath's difficulty is where we want it
  Is Wrath too easy? GC says no.
• Four year anniversary pet and feat of strength achievement
  For the game's fourth birthday, we all got a baby bear pet as a gift.
• Wrath of the Lich King breaks internal records at EB Games
  A secret correspondent in the big games retailer snaps a shot of the internal email about how well the expansion did.

Features

• WoW Insider's 2008 holiday gift guide
  Yes, it's that time of year again, so here's a guide that will help find a gift for the WoW player in your life.
• Five old world vanity pets you may have missed
  Everyone's chasing achievements, so if you're trying to get every single noncombat pet out there, here's five you may have missed the first time around.
• A Death Knight's first dungeon: Dos and Don'ts part 1
  How to run your first instance with a new class.
• The Oracles' mysterious egg is a must-get
  We're slowly finding out about some of the cooler rep rewards in Northrend.
• The Queue: Tradeskill bits and pieces
  Our Q&A column answers reader questions about tradeskills. Have one of your own? Ask it in the comments.

Blizzard announced today that World of Warcraft's second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, sold a paltry 2.8 million units in its first 24 hours. That's only 400,000 more units than Burning Crusade did on its launch day. We're guessing Activision is completely regretting that whole merger now, huh?

With 11 million players currently in Azeroth, that means about 25% of the base couldn't live without their precious expansion for more than 24 hours, saying nothing of the millions who bought it later. In other news, there are rumors that the Drug Enforcement Administration is looking to bring electronic software under its purview. Not really, but we really are waiting for WoW to be classified as a controlled substance.

[Via WoW Insider]

News

• Bug rewards free and discounted PvP gear
  Right before the expansion, Blizzard made a mistake, and ended up giving out some good gear (and then taking it away again).
• Nymh of EU Drek'thar first to level 80
  Just about a day after the expansion was released, we had our first level 80 character.
• World first level 80 Death Knight
  And later in the weekend, someone took a Death Knight to level 80 (quite a feat -- they had to go from level 55).
• TwentyFifthNovember clears all Wrath PvE content
  And just to complete the trilogy of content-clearing feats, a merged superguild also stepped up and cleared all the endgame content over the weekend.
• Fifteen-year-old collapses after playing Wrath for hours on no sleep or food
  This just in: avoiding sleep or food is not healthy.

Features

• The Wrath of the Lich King Death Knight roundup
  Everything you ever wanted to know about the game's new Hero class.
• The Queue: Yes, this is what we call it now
  Since the beta is over, our Ask a Beta Tester column undergoes a name change, but still answers all of your questions about the game and how it plays.
• Wrath 101: How to get to Northrend and where to go once you get there
  Lost looking for the new content. Here's help. And also check our Alliance and Horde flight point guides.
• Wrath profession goodies
  There's a whole new swatch of profession items to make out there, so we've got tips on where to begin.
• Wrath of the Lich King: Midnight approaches
  We were at midnight launches all over the country, and we brought back pictures and stories from fans of all kinds.

Looks like the Call of Duty franchise still has plenty of World War II to exploit as World at War outsold Call of Duty 4's debut week in the UK two to one. GI.biz reports that CoD:WaW stands atop the "All Formats" charts, but no actual sales numbers are given, merely chart position. The top ten can be found after the break.

Interesting to note is that Activision Blizzard accounted for 25% of all game sales for the week ending Nov. 15, with the one-two punch of CoD:WaW and World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, followed by several other top performers like the Guitar Hero franchise. Not surprisingly, Lich King is apparently the fastest-selling PC title in UK. People needs their fix!

Although most bets on real-world Wrath of the Lich King drama had good odds on it involving a dead gamer in Asia, we're sure the media will be more than happy to take its pound of flesh from an exhausted Swedish boy as the latest victim of "game addiction." The 15-year-old went into convulsions following a marathon World of Warcraft session in which he hardly ate or slept.

Doctors say the boy will make a full recovery and the child's father expressed he'll limit the amount of time his son plays from now on. That must be awful for the dad; now he has to make sure his son is eating properly and pay attention to how the boy is spending his time. Parental responsibility is, like, totally not fun.

[Thanks, Henry; Via WoW Insider]

Family. Family is a beautiful and precious thing in all its many forms. It gives a sense of love and belonging in an otherwise hostile world. The smile of your child, the eyes of your lover, the loving embrace of a parent. Family. Go and enjoy yours while you can because time takes away all things.

Oh yeah, a World of Warcraft player named Nymh, on EU server Drek'thar, has hit the new level 80 cap in the expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, within a day. For those who don't know what that means, it basically involves tapping a keyboard, staring at a monitor and rubbing your mouse around for way too long.

Now, go get some hugz.

[Via WoW Insider]

While it might be Launch of the Glitch King (how many writers are hoping and praying they get to use that pun in the next few days?) over on the East Coast, the West Coast launch in Southern California is pretty much going off without a Lich. Er, hitch. While we couldn't get an official head count on the event at Fry's in Anaheim, we did overhear one Blizzard employee telling another that "there are a crap ton of people outside." While that not be a unit of measurement recognized by the U.S. Government, we'll take it.

Check out the highlights from the World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King launch in Anaheim, a mere stone's throw away from the company headquarters in Irvine. More than 100 members of the development team were on hand to sign boxes, people were wearing costumes, schwag was given away ... and they were serving Hot Dog on a Stick. Check out the photos below and the highlights inside.