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Retailers Using Call of Duty 4 Costs to Lure Gamers?

Shiva Stella — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 14:55:25 -0600

Some of you might be wondering why retailers have been offering Activision and Infinity Ward's stellar hit, Call of Duty 4, at such reduced rates (with some prices as low as a mere $38 for this "game of the year" title). It almost appears as though this incredible game isn't selling as well as it should be (which you know is an automatic farce if you've spent any time bouncing between matches on Infinity's servers).

Newsweek has tackled the question head-on, turning to analyst Michael Pachter for comment on what's going on with CoD4's low pricing. Pachter summarizes neatly:

COD4 is selling very well, so much so that I think it's been positioned as a loss leader to drive store traffic, particularly at Circuit City. I've seen the same ads, and it is a retailer price cut, not a publisher price cut. There are differences in terminology between how the two cuts are advertised (long story). So the answer is that holiday software sales were great (more from GameStop on Jan 10), and retailers know that they can offer discounts to drive customers to their stores. COD4 has been holding its own at $60...

So retailers are apparently luring customers in with great deals on CoD4 in the hopes of selling them $500+ Wiis and games they don't want. At least it means a great deal for you.

Back to WWII For Call of Duty 5? Probably Not

Aaron Dunlap — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 19:20:04 -0600

This is just rumormongering, but Gamer.tm got word from a tipster that the job postings at Treyarch (makers of Call of Duty 3) include a level designer position. The description for the posting includes, if youre a fan of World War 2 shooters, then even better!

Let's see. Treyarch has made more than zero Call of Duty games, and they say they want a level designer who likes World War II games... it all adds up!

It's a pretty flimsy premise, in the same way as the notion that there's a treasure map on the back of the Declaration of Independence. Infinity ward's Call of Duty 4 got lots of praise for shirking the tired WWII premise, and if Activision has indeed tapped Treyarch to make yet another WWII shooter, well, I don't know what's become of the world.

Infinity Ward Addressing Call of Duty 4 Multiplayer Issues

Shiva Stella — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 11:09:03 -0600

If you were playing Call of Duty 4 over the weekend for either the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 you might have noticed some strange server issues or received a few "unable to join game" errors.

Apparently our Call of Duty friends over in the UK have been experiencing the same troubles (though according to MCV, only on the PS3 version?) due to the same reason: an unexpectedly high volume of players trying to take their shooting skills online. Imagine that.

Infinity Ward is now addressing the issue and has commented, again courtesy of MCV:

"The only real issue is that the servers were getting hit really hard, especially with the launch in Europe doubling that traffic. Its just something that requires optimising on the server side and we've been working with the PSN COD4 Server team from the moment it started having issues assisting any way we can to help them get them up to speed faster."

As of this writing the server issues stateside seem to have been resolved or are at least stabilized. You can check out our single player review of CoD4 here and if you too encounter some connectivity issues, feel free to visit the game's xbox.com forums for updates.