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Call of Duty: Ghosts launches ahead of new games consoles

The creator of the latest Call of Duty video game has acknowledged that initial sales of the title are likely to be slower than last time round.

CoD: Ghosts launches weeks ahead of the release of Sony and Microsoft's new consoles.

As a result, Mark Rubin, studio head at developer Infinity Ward, said some gamers would wait for the new hardware to become available.

The previous game, CoD: Black Ops II, made $1bn (£630m) within 15 days.

By the end of last year, more than 2.6 million copies had been sold in the UK alone - nearly double the number of tickets bought for the Avengers Assemble movie - making it the country's best-selling entertainment release of 2012.

"Next-gen has historically created a bit of a challenge for all games from a numbers standpoint," Mr Rubin told the BBC.

"It's definitely something we're aware of. I know talking to a lot of people, figuring out what they're going to buy is a problem.

"I think it will be spread out a little bit - it's harder to do the day-one [sales]... but I think we're in a good spot."

He added that to encourage early take-up, publisher Activision was offering purchasers of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games discounted copies of the Xbox One and PS4 editions if they upgraded within a time limit.

The launch is publisher Activision Blizzard's first since it gained its independence by using debt to buy most of French firm Vivendi's shares in the business.
Dog play

Ghosts is the first game in a new story arc, set in 2023 - a future in which much of the US lies in ruins after an attack by a space weapons system. In the single-player campaign, players take part in a military unit attempting to lead a fight-back against a new South American superpower.
Call of Duty: Ghosts Ghosts' plot was scripted by Stephen Gaghan, the writer of the movies Traffic and Syriana

It is being released just over a decade after the first CoD game went on sale. As part of efforts to keep the franchise fresh, Infinity Ward has added features not available before.

These include:

the ability to alter the landscape, changing available pathways and sightlines
new multiplayer Squads modes, which allow players to create a customised team of soldiers that can be pitched against other groups of human and computer-controlled characters
the chance to play as a German-shepherd dog

Gameplay in both the current and next-generation console editions is similar, although the latter promises superior graphics and the ability to have more people involved in multi-player battles.

"Early adopters of consoles will want a game that impresses visually," said Michael French, publisher of games trade magazine MCV.

"The games don't have to be 100% original. Eventually over time the audience will want something new - the big franchises will have to either take some time out or totally reinvent themselves.

"But for those buying close to day one, they just want something that looks better."
Battlefield 4 EA's rival first-person shooter, Battlefield 4, went on sale at the end of October

Ghosts will compete against Electronic Arts' recently released war game Battlefield 4 - which has won praise for its large-scale multiplayer maps - and its highly anticipated sci-fi shooter Titanfall, which has been developed by several former members of Infinity Ward.
Different resolutions

Mr Rubin caused surprise last week when he revealed that only the PlayStation 4 version renders Ghosts in full 1080p high-definition video.

The Xbox One and Nintendo's Wii U consoles will deliver 720p graphics - half the resolution - despite the fact they can support the higher-quality format.

"We did what we could to make sure each platform looked as good as it could and that it performed," Mr Rubin told the BBC.

"One of the key pillars of Call of Duty has been 60 frames per second... and ensuring that was of utmost importance, and the resolutions that appear are geared around that."

The PS4 and Xbox One are both powered by customised chips from the same manufacturer, AMD - however, Sony's machine has more cores in its graphics processing unit (GPU) and uses faster, albeit more expensive, RAM memory.
Call of D Gamers play part of the latest Call of Duty as a dog named Riley

However, Mr Rubin did not rule out future CoD titles running in 1080p on Microsoft's machine.

"It don't think it's the case that the Xbox One definitely can't do it - I just think that we need time to get there.

"It's a normal thing when new platforms come out that the first games are trying to find their feet.

"An analogy I use is that it's like an awkward first date - you're still trying to figure each other out.

"There's enormous amounts of work ahead of us in perfecting our game engines on both platforms."

You know games journalism is shit when the metro is the stand out example of actual journalism:

http://metro.co.uk/2013/11/05/call-of-duty-ghosts-mark-rubin-interview-there-are-things-that-were-not-allowed-to-talk-about-4173810/

That was actually a really good interview!

The Metro website is pretty good when it comes to games. Obviously I avoid everything else on it, as it's owned by the Daily Mail.

Plus our old friend Rich from MB works for them!

Aye, it's a really great article. Really impressed.

I wish the 'proper' (haha) games media would learn a thing or two from it/grow a backbone.

Call of Duty: Ghosts branded ‘lazy’ for reusing Modern Warfare 2 cutscene

Popular video game punching bag Call of Duty has come in for more criticism with its new title Ghosts, after a video posted on YouTube showed an animation from Modern Warfare 2 re-purposed for the Xbox 360/PS3 game.

A soldier is seen rescuing a fallen comrade in the clips, which are identical except for the characters’ clothes and method of extraction (helicopter in one, truck in the other).

Re-using animations isn’t entirely uncommon in video games, but the repetition is being seen as an example of much-maligned developer Infinity Ward’s ‘laziness’ by many online, with views for it rapidly climbing.

‘Cut and paste at it’s finest! Everything they do is cut and paste and they rake in billions every year with this sh*t,’ one typically angry YouTube commenter wrote, as another added: ‘I have a weird feeling that MW2 looked way better than Ghosts.’

The latest instalment of the first-person shooter franchise was released for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 this week, and is set to come out on next generation consoles Xbox One and PlayStation 4 later this month.

Early reviews of the PS4 edition have reported problems with the graphics, with testers saying that its frame rate dropped at several points during the game causing it to stutter.

Call of Duty: Ghosts multiplayer launch figures appear to be down about 30% from Black Ops II on Steam



Call of Duty: Ghosts is out, and the rails are running as they normally do. The super-fans are tucked up in bed, recovering from their midnight excursions. Everybody at Activision HQ has found a copy on their desk, as tradition dictates. And in a couple of days, the publishers will have announced that Ghosts had the biggest launch since the HMS Really Very Large.

But the new Call of Duty is quietly sinking on Steam.

Call of Duty: Ghosts’ single player peaked at just under 14,000 concurrent players at launch on Steam this week, and its multiplayer at 35,000. By contrast, Black Ops II’s single player topped 18,000 players in its first four days, and its multiplayer pushed beyond 50,000. That’s discounting Black Ops II’s Zombies mode, which runs in a separate executable and accounted for a further 7000 peak users in the same period.

The dip starts to look like a slide once you return to the launches of Modern Warfare 3 - 45,000 for single player, 80,000 for multiplayer - and the original Black Ops in 2010. Black Ops’ multiplayer peaked at over 95,000 concurrent players during its first four days after launch, and its single player pulled in 60,000 simultaneously.

There are three conclusions to be drawn, then. First, that single player Call of Duty has been all but abandoned by Steam users over the last couple of years. Second, that PC gamers are increasingly apathetic in the face of yearly CoD releases. And third, that Ghosts is a bit bum.

The metascore for Ghosts’ Xbox version currently sits at 74%, nine points below its predecessor. What’s more, its PC version is hamstrung by technical missteps: a missing FOV slider, frame rate issues even on the highest end machines, and a bizzare requirement that your machine has six GB of RAM, despite using less than two. We have Fraser playing it now, and first impressions are not good. For reasons why, maybe look to the upcoming consoles - a further two games for Infinity Ward and co. to develop alongside the usual three.

You might also conclude that Battlefield 4 has taken a serious bite out of CoD’s PC playerbase, despite its own catastrophic launch. But without figures easily available from Origin, we can’t know for sure.

What we do know is that Ghosts hasn’t turned out quite right. And though the console figures might tell a different story, PC gamers are losing interest.

and the hardcore game modes are very limited (just TDM / KC / and new 'search and rescue' instead of S&D)

This is the first year since MW1 when I haven't picked it up on day 1. Apathy set in with BLOPS and it's got worse since.

I think :

MW1 - People went mad for - it was a truly ground breaking game
WaW - Same engine less polished - definitely a 'B team' game but introduced Zombies into the mix
MW2 - More of what made MW1 so good , took everything in there and turned it up to 11
BLOPS - A real try at making another story based game with some twists and turns and probably my favorite of the set

Call of Duty: Ghosts Sold Less Than Black Ops II at Launch, Activision Admits

espite trying to bamboozle us with unrepresentative stats, Call of Duty: Ghosts has sold less copies at launch than Black Ops II, Activision has said.

Speaking during an investors call last night, CFO Dennis Durkin said, “As we have said for more than a year now, console transition years are volatile and hard to predict, and this year is proving no different.”

“Today, we announced that we had shipped into retail more than $1bn of Call of Duty: Ghosts globally on day one based on an average wholesale price. As expected, due to the console transition and digital distribution, this number is down versus last year.

“This year, the sell-through curve will be different than in past years due to the multiple launches of new hardware later in the month and more days between our launch and the high-volume Black Friday at the end of the month.

“That said, it's a very solid achievement and shows the tremendous confidence our retail partners have and the strength of the game and franchise heading into this holiday.”

Call of Duty: Ghosts’ problem is a common one. Both Battlefield 4 and Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag launch sales were down on the previous year also, with next-gen versions on the horizon. Expect all those games to get a significant bump once Xbox One and PS4 launches later in the month.

Fewer copies.

And surely that was expected? Franchise fatigue combined with waiting for the new consoles in a couple of weeks!

I'll be on tomorrow at some point.

Is it good? Or just more of the same?

So other than aping Zombies there's no redeemable new features over the last few CoD's? What's the point of CoD: Ghosts again?

they appear to have spent a long time making the guns look pretty, but nothing else, and who really looks at the guns?

@Jack, I tend to agree, but I am using the thermal scope so everything is black and white half the time. The colour palette is a bit more BlopsII, which is quite lush and green. The graphics are worse, they appear to have spent a long time making the guns look pretty, but nothing else, and who really looks at the guns?
There is really very little feedback on kills, I can't quite figure out what is missing, but there are a number of times I have killed someone and not realised.

Agree on the feedback. A few times I've hit someone, assumed the kill, and then they've popped back up and murdered me. Equally, there are times I think I've hit someone once, and it turns out they're dead.

In the here and now, the current-gen Call of Duty experience is best delivered on the 360, followed quite closely by the PS3 version, where stable multiplayer performance is backed up by a campaign that still delivers a good slice of 60fps action, even if frame-rates aren't quite as smooth as on Microsoft's platform. However, the soft-focused look doesn't represent the game in its best light in comparison to the sharper and cleaner 360 release, while the texture bugs are disappointing to see. The real letdown comes with the Wii U version, which sees owners of Nintendo's console once again left with a sub-par experience marred by frequent frame-rate issues and some pretty striking texture quality problems that makes it hard to recommend when both 360 and PS3 offer up smoother gameplay and more enjoyable online play as a result.

‘Call of Duty: Ghosts’ publisher talks hacked lobbies and lack of hardcore mode



A spokesperson from Activision has commented on several issues surrounding the recently-launched multiplatform video game, “Call of Duty: Ghosts.” One of the problems with the first-person shooter is the appearance of hacked lobbies. A fan asked the company through the Activision Support Twitter page on Nov. 10 if his stats could be reset if he entered into matches that were plagued by hackers.

The spokesperson answered back by saying that the development team is currently looking into the issue. You can check out a batch of images from the latest “Call of Duty” title in the slideshow near the top of this article and the response below:

We are looking into this now - no update at this time but we appreciate your patience.

Another fan was curious if more hardcore modes would be added to “Call of Duty: Ghosts.” He also wanted to know if the Free Fall multiplayer map, which was a free pre-order bonus, would also be added into the rotation for players playing under hardcore settings. The Activision spokesperson hinted that updates to the playlists, such as adding Search and Destroy to the Core catalog on Nov. 15, are possible. You can find the comments from Twitter below:

We do update playlists, and we can forward your feedback along Rothwell! Core is getting SnD on the 15th, so it is possible. ^NM

“Call of Duty: Ghosts” launched with the Kill Confirmed, Search and Rescue in addition to the Team Deathmatch hardcore variants. The first-person shooter is now available on the Nintendo Wii U, PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. It is coming to the Playstation 4 and Xbox One as well later this month.

You can order the products from Amazon in the following links: “Call of Duty: Ghosts,” PS4 and Xbox One. A few Black Friday Countdown deals can also be found in the following link from Amazon.com: Countdown to Black Friday Deals Week.

Hacked? How so?