Its domination continues. As more than 6.5 million people have purchased Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 within its first 24 hours on the market, in both North America and the United Kingdom, with it pulling in more than $400 million in total revenue.

That number makes it one of the largest entertainment launches in history, with the record being held by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 at $483 million — but that was within two days, not one. Meaning that, Modern Warfare 3 could still obtain the record.

“We believe the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is the biggest entertainment launch of all time in any medium, and we achieved this record with sales from only two territories,” said Bobby Kotick, CEO, Activision Blizzard, Inc.

“Other than Call of Duty, there has never been another entertainment franchise that has set opening day records three years in a row. Life-to-date sales for the Call of Duty franchise exceed worldwide theatrical box office for “Star Wars” and “Lord of the Rings,” two of the most successful entertainment franchises of all time.”

Blizzard Entertainment have unveiled the final character class for Diablo III, the Demon Hunter class, a class that captures the essence of its name. The Demon Hunter carries a dual-crossbow and is said to be the successor to the Rogue class from the original.

The Demon Hunter class is focused on projectile weapons; including throwing knives, grenades, bolas and, of course, crossbows, which can be combined with magic spells. It’s also said to finalize the “archetypes” of the Diablo universe, adding a needed strategy to the title — delayed attacks, traps, and timed detonations.

Update: It has been brought to my attention that there was a little error within the title. However, it has now been edited.

Original: That’s right. According to The Hollwood Reporter, it seems that Activision have set up deals for “Call of Duty: The Movie”, the movie for the very popular video game.

“[The Call of Duty movie is] being talked about for the big screen,” said one person with knowledge of the deal.

However, in an interview prior to Thursday’s quarterly earnings conference call, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick wouldn’t comment on the status of Call of Duty becoming a film.

Kotick added that video games, especially family-friendly titles – like Guitar Hero, which will be getting its own show - are “capturing leisure time away from TV and film.”

Evidence that Kotick might be correct was in the company’s financial report on Thursday. Revealing that Activision Blizzard’s first-quarter revenue had more than tripled to $981 million as net income swelled to $189 million from $43 million in the year-ago quarter.

There were many reports today stating that Modern Warfare 2 has dropped the ‘Call of Duty’ out of its name, so we asked Activision for a reason why they changed the name. Responding, a company spokesperson told us as to the reason why.

“Modern Warfare has taken on such a life of its own, it has become our focus now,” we were told by the company spokesperson. But, sadly, other then that we were reminded that, “it’s too early to release additional details.”

The game is planned to release November 10th 2009. More details will be revealed in our upcoming preview of the title coming god knows when.

When Activision dropped most of there upcoming games for the merger with Blizzard, that we thought were going to be good, the video game version of the hit movie Ghostbusters was a victim. Then there was that rumor going around that the game was happily picked up by the guys over at Atari, and soon after that things changed.

Now, Atari has confirmed that the game will be releasing in June of next year, which by the is way more specific than “sometime in 2009.” However, the other games dropped by the merger have been pick up for next year release dates.

While Nintendo is still leading the pack, if you ask Activision Blizzard for their input on the out growth of a system they seem to think that the PS3 will see more growth than the Xbox 360 by the end of ’08. According to GameDaily, in a conference call Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith provided the company’s expectations for console hardware growth in North America and Europe combined.

Griffith said that while the Xbox 360 is expected to grow by an additional six to seven million units for this calendar year, Sony’s PS3 should grow by eight million units. But, anyway if you were to point to fact neither the PS3 nor the 360 can stack up against the Wii, but it depends on which continues to sell at a torrid pace. But, he does expect the Nintendo Wii to sell by another 15 million units this year.

He also mentioned that Activision believes handhelds will grow by 24 million units, but he did not break that down into DS vs. PSP sales, go figure.

[Activision Expects PS3 Growth to Outpace Xbox 360 This Year via GameDaily]

Personally, I never really notice that these games were different and it looks like THQ has found out why. According to Patent Arcade, THQ has filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard over trade dress and copyright, which means box-art in this case. The news site reports that the lawsuit against Activision Blizzard is about the upcoming game “SCORE International Baja 1000 The Official Game”. THQ alleges that the game from Activision Blizzard infringes the trade dress and copyrights in THQ’s game “Baja Edge of Control,” which was released in September 2008.

The file (linked below) states that Activision is trying to gain more sales by using the same box-art to confuse consumers that buy the game. Also, it says that Activision Blizzard must change the games box-art prior to it’s release, which is on October 28, 2008, but if Activision Blizzard wins nothing changes.

PDF – THQ Inc. v. Activision Blizzard, Inc. [Patent Arcade]

As the news is still buzzing around the internet today, Activision Blizzard has unmasked that it has brought out U.K. developer FreeStyleGames. Now, according to a leak, FreeStyleGames could be working on DJ Hero, which was trademarked back in February by Activision, and Kotaku has possible collected the first details for the game. In the details given to Kotaku it states that DJ Hero will be a a music rhythm game that will let gamers scratch to the beat of popular mash-ups with a laptop turntable peripheral. The information goes on to state that the game was in development for nearly two years and is expected to hit shelves next summer. Which will explain the recent buy out of the name by Activision.

They go onto talk about the controls system will likely include the ability to use Guitar Hero guitars for versus mode face-offs. Also it talks about the games control system which will feature nearly a half-dozen iterations. With the device looking a lot like a simplified DJ Deck. There is a platter for scratching which will act like the strum toggle on a Guitar Hero guitar. Above the platter are three buttons for sampling. The controller also includes a cross fader and a sound effects dial which will act like the whammy bar in Guitar Hero.

Instead of flowing the musical notes down a guitar neck, DJ Hero will flow the music down and around a virtual record in a half arc. Either left top to middle bottom if you are left handed, or right top to middle bottom if you are right handed.

Currently the wireless controller has grooves molded into the bottom so it will sit comfortably in a player’s lap, though the team is also looking into legs for the deck so gamers can play while standing up.

According to Joystiq, an Activision PR representative at X08 confirmed that the fifth Call of Duty game will be releasing sometime in November. This just points to the fact that Activision is sticking to their “fall 08″ gap that they set for the game when it was released. If Activision’s November gap is true this could mean that they maybe are trying to release the game the same date as the number one Call of Duty game of all time, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which released on November the fifth. November is also the release month of Gears of War 2 and Resistance 2, this could mean that Activision will pit it’s games with the other power hitters that will be releasing in that month time frame.

The Vancouver Sun is reporting that video game company Radical Entertainment will be laying off about 100 employees, which is almost half its staff. The decision was made by the company’s owner, Activision Blizzard, to reduce the number of titles Radical produces.

“Activision Blizzard is committed to making the best games possible and has elected at this time to reduce the number of titles that Radical is developing from four games to two,” Leah Rubin, Radical’s vice-president of human resources, in an email. “Therefore, we will be proportionately reducing the size of our studio.”

Activision Blizzard said it would go ahead with five games including Radical’s Crash Bandicoot, and Prototype, a new game created by Radical that will debut in 2009. The reductions come in the wake of an ownership change last month that saw France-based Vivendi, which owns Radical, and American video software company Activision, join forces as Activision Blizzard.

Bobby Kotick, the CEO of Activision Blizzard was very proud to announced that Call of Duty 6 will be developed by Infinity Ward and will be on track for a 2009 release. If you don’t remember, Infinity Ward was the development studio which was behind the Call of Duty franchise and are the mastermind behind Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare.

While this is great news there are still many question that are left to be answered. What time will Call of Duty 6 be placed in? While there is no idea many are rumored to believe that  in 2009 we may be heading the way of the science fiction universe. So will Call of Duty 6 be held in space with squads and or marines fighting the War On Terror. Stay with us we will keep you informed

Thats right. Radical Entertainment has already started development on a new Bourne game entitled The Bourne Conspiracy 2: Treadstone. The game was set to be a multi-player online game, which is set in the world of Bourne. But, the games production was put on halt, so their hoping that a new publisher will revive it.

Update:

According to VideoGamesBlogger, they where looking into making a Bourne in videogame license.

Jeff Weiner, CEO of Ludlum Entertainment:

“Videogames are capital intensive and time intensive to develop. We don’t want to do one-offs,”

Ubisoft has just finished the opening day of the Ubidays conference and the has not been a single word about Splinter Cell Conviction. The evidence does suggests that Ubisoft planned to show the game during the event. The Ubidays event was the ideal time to slip in a few words on the upcoming Splinter Cell. Could this mean that the rumors going around happen to be real?

Heres a good question Ubisoft, Wheres Sam?