Activision Blizzard packed quite a punch in its first quarter announcements today. Along with $1.4 billion in sales revenue, $503 million of which is profit, the company is doing unsurprisingly better than they did last year's first quarter figures, with the help of Call of Duty: Black Ops and the downloadable map packs. Here are some highlights from the press release (and elsewhere):
– Spyro will return in Skylander's Spyro's Adventure described as "an innovative new universe bringing the world of toys, video games and the Internet together in an unprecedented way".
– In the second quarter, Activision will release the Escalation map pack on PS3 and releasing Transformers: Dark of the Moon to coincide with the movie.
– Wipeout in the Zone, a Kinect-ready title for Xbox 360, will coincide with the summer release of Wipeout
– Blizzard is busy developing the Heart of the Swarm expansion for Starcraft II and currently doing internal testing for Diablo III, with plans to allow players into an external beta in the third quarter. However, "Blizzard Entertainment has not confirmed a launch date for its next global release, the company's calendar year outlook at this time does not include a new game from Blizzard in 2011."
