Call of Duty Elite leaked along with Modern Warfare 3 recently and everyone assumed, correctly, that the title referred to the monthly service Activision has always hoped to tack on to Call of Duty's millions of global players.
The screenshot above represents a player's page within the Elite service. The Wall Street Journal writes:
Activision Blizzard plans to launch an online service called Call of Duty Elite this fall that will work with the next major edition of the game, "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3," and future installments of the hyper-realistic combat-simulator game. In a move industry executives describe as a first, Activision plans to charge a monthly subscription fee for the service, which will provide extra content that isn't offered on game discs sold in stores, including downloadable map packs that give players new "Call of Duty" levels to play.
While I wouldn't call CoD "hyper-realistic," the Wall Street Journal does continue to point out that:
For players with a Microsoft Corp. Xbox 360 console, a Call of Duty Elite subscription will come on top of the $9.99 monthly fee they typically pay for Xbox Live, the online gaming service that provides players of all Xbox games to meet and compete against others online.
If you're wondering how much Activision is hoping you'll pay for Call of Duty Elite, look to "comparable online-entertainment services, such as a $7.99-a-month Netflix Inc. movie subscription."
No. Just no. I don't mean to mouth off but there's gotta be more to "Elite" status than a handful of map packs. The Call of Duty player base isn't large enough to support some kind of social-networking kind of thing either. I also don't think taking away the theater and recording options from players in order to charge for them is smart either. Honestly, I could only justify a Call of Duty subscription if it meant getting a copy of Activision's yearly Call of Duty series for free with my monthly fee.
[Source]
