Tag Archives: Mike Griffith

Activision’s confirmed that CEO and president Mike Griffith has resigned, effective from April 23.

More »

Activision has quietly restructured its senior management and divided itself into four units without informing investors or the public, according to an LA Times report.

CEO Mike Griffith has also been promoted to vice chairman, which will have him serving as advisor to Bobby Kotick.

More »

True Crime’s reboot is looking “especially strong,” Activision Blizzard CEO Mike Griffith said in the company’s full-year earnings call last night, and will be rewarded by a lack of competition in the genre later this year.

More »

Despite Robomodo’s initial Tony Hawk Ride title getting roundly savage by critics towards the end of 2009, company CEO Mike Griffith believes the next game in the series, due later this year, will succeed in achieving the concept’s vision.

More »

Activision’s announced David Haddad will become the new CEO of the Guitar Hero franchise.

More »

Activision has claimed that Modern Warfare 2 has achieved the “biggest entertainment launch in history,” with UK and US day one sales totaling $310 million.

“According to internal Activision estimates,” the game sold approximately 4.7 million units in the US and UK in 24 hours of launching.

Mike Griffith, Acti head: “The shattering of these entertainment records is a testament to the compelling, cinematic and uniquely engaging experience that the Call of Duty brand delivers. Modern Warfare 2 has taken interactive experience to unprecedented heights setting a new standard for entertainment.”

PR after the break.

More »

Activision announced during yesterday’s Q2 financial reveal that Blur will land in stores come November.

“In November we’ll release our new racing game Blur from Bizarre Creations,” said Mike Griffith. “Blur had a strong showing at E3 as well, including the nomination for best racing game.

“We’re excited to be entering this genre and we think the game itself sets us apart from the competition and will establish a new franchise for the company.”

Also revealed yesterday, were some of the preorder bonuses through retailers for the game which you can look over here.

These same retail stores have BLur down for a November 3 release.

Activision CEO Mike Griffith just confirmed that Tony Hawk: Ride will only launch in the US, UK and Germany this year.

Other territories will get the peripheral-based game in 2010.

The comments came in the company’s Q2 financial call, which is ongoing.

Activision’s Mike Griffith has just announced that a new Bond game will release in 2010.

No release date or details were announced.

In the same breath, he stated that new Tony Hawk and Spider-Man games were also expected in the next calendar year.

This is in line with the company’s commitment to proven franchises, said the boss.

According to Activision CEO Mike Griffith, the company expects DJ Hero to appeal to a broader base of gamers than Guitar Hero due not only to the different music styles offered, but because the content has wider mainstream appeal.

“It’s certainly hitting a more mainstream and expanded audience from Guitar Hero,” he told GI.biz. “I think it will build on what Guitar Hero has been able to do. If you look at what our Guitar Hero franchise has achieved, we now have 15 million households that are active Guitar Hero users and we continue to satisfy them with more experiences and the chance to indulge in more music and gameplay.

“But outside of those 15 million household’s, there’s another 300 million that haven’t for one reason or another bought Guitar Hero yet. One of those reasons is we’re not reaching new genres and new music audiences in a way that DJ Hero allows us to accomplish.

“DJ Hero is going to be expansive to the franchise and be particularly exciting for Europe where that genre of music is arguably more important than it is elsewhere.”

The game is expected to ship October 27 for PS2, PS3, Wii and Xbox 360.

Why add a peripheral to the Tony Hawk franchise? So you can be Tony Hawk, Activision CEO Mike Griffith’s told MCV. Without all the blood unpleasantness, obviously.

“It’s the same analogy as Guitar Hero, where you can feel like you are a rock legend, even if you can’t play a single note; now with Ride you can skate the way a skating legend like Tony Hawk skates, but you won’t break your head open,” said the exec.

“It’s proving to be lots of fun, and the peripheral board, with its sensors, is very responsive. It’s a thrill.”

There’s an interview through there. Ride’s out later this year.

Activision CEO Mike Griffith has revealed that Guitar Hero has sold for more than $1 billion in the company’s pre-E3 conference yesterday.

He goes on to say the install base is now over 15 million and the company is looking to increase those numbers.

Guitar Hero 5 will have more than 20 top 10 hits, apparently and the company is excited about the launch of Guitar Hero: Metallica in Europe.

Thanks, Gamespot.

Activision boss Mike Griffith told assembled journos and analysts in its pre-E3 presentation yesterday that racing game Blur should attract both the hardcore racing fans, and the mainstream Mario Kart crowd. The difference however, is that Blur won’t be limited to one system.

“The concept of Blur falls in between the hardcore tuner sims and just-for-fun arcade racers,” says the Gamespot transcription of the event. “Mario Kart in particular shows the potential for a well-crafted mainstream racing game.”

“But where Mario Kart was limited to one system, Blur will be multiplatform,” said Griffith.

He goes on to say that Activision wants to do for racing games what Call of Duty did to shooters.

Activision boss Mike Griffith revealed in Activision’s pre-E3 press conference yesterday that “Call of Duty products have totalled sales over 35 million.”

He also revealed, via Gamespot, that World at War has sold 11 million units in just six months, and Modern Warfare has sold at full price for six straight quarters.

Griffith also announced that Modern Warfare 2 pre-sales are already breaking records and the November 10 launch should rank as one of the biggest entertainment releases ever.

So, Call of Duty doing well, then?

Activision company president and CEO Mike Griffith has revealed that we’ll see new James Bond, Tony Hawk, Spider-Man, and Transformers titles in 2010.

There’ll be a Shrek 4 game too, thank God.

The news comes via Gamespot, who listened in on Activision’s pre-E3 presser yesterday.

Activision boss Mike Griffith said in the Acti Blizz Q1 earnings call last night that Guitar Hero is now responsible for more than half of all rhythm action sales in the US and Europe.

“This quarter, we further extended our advantage for the Guitar Hero franchise,” he said. “We ended the quarter with a 55% share of all rhythm and music based games in North America and Europe, up 10 full points from the prior year, as we took share from Rock Band in both North America and Europe.”

Griffith wasn’t done with the Rock Band-bashing.

“In Europe, where expansion of the franchise remains a strategic priority, quarterly sell-through was up over 80 percent year over year, with Guitar Hero outselling Rock Band by 10:1,” he added.

“Our competitive position should further improve next month when we launch Guitar Hero Metallica in Europe.”

You go, girl. Get the rest of the news from the call here.

Activision CEO Mike Griffith said in Acti Blizz’s Q1 earnings call yesterday that the new Tony Hawk game is to add a completely new dimension to the series. That’ll be a plastic skateboard, then.

“We are also planning to release our reinvention of Tony Hawk [later this year], with a very innovative and interactive game that lets consumers experience the thrill of skateboarding like never before,” said the boss.

“Our goal from the start was to reinvent this franchise back to its roots where we engaged a broad, mass market consumer, and we feel good about what this game can do. We will also unveil specifics at E3.”

Roll on June. You can never have enough bits of plastic in your living room.

Activision CEO Mike Griffith has told Bloomberg that the firm is in buying mode.

“The combination of Activision holding a fair amount of cash and presumably prices being depressed, not only for publicly traded companies, but also likely for new intellectual property licensing rights, should certainly create opportunities,” he said.

Griffith didn’t mention specific targets, adding “we won’t rush to judgment just because we have cash. We will be very disciplined.”

Buy EA for a laugh, Mike. More through there.

Forgot this last night. Acti Blizz confirmed a new Tony Hawk game for the fourth quarter of this year in its Q4 earnings call yesterday, saying it’s to shake the franchise up with a new gameplay mechanic.

“We said we would reinvent this franchise from the ground up and we have developed a very innovative and interactive approach for Tony,” said president Mike Griffith.

“This should allow us to broaden the appeal of skateboarding beyond the core to mass market audiences and take advantage of this cycle’s dynamics. More details later for competitive reasons.”

Do you reckon it’ll come with a plastic skateboard? Get the rest of the news from the call here.

Activision president Mike Griffith last night said the firm expects big increased in console sales next year, with large sales rises for both under-the-TV and handheld hardware.

“For calendar year 2009, we expect the installed base of hardware in North America and Europe will be up 8 million units for the PS3 and up 8 million units for the Xbox 360,” he said.

“We expect the Wii to add more than 16 million units.”

DS and PSP will show huge growth, said the exec.

“We expect handhelds will grow in excess of 21 million units.”

The company last night reported revenues of $5 billion for 2008, up 26 percent on the previous year.