Activision Blizzard's Fourth Quarter 2012 Results; New Call of Duty Announced

Activision Blizzard has posted its fourth quarter 2012 results and announced that a new Call of Duty game will be arriving late this year, which should surprise nobody.

2012 was a good year to the company, which made $5 billion in revenue, and claimed number one statuses for video game publisher and digital publisher in the US and Europe, plus the top game title overall, top console title and top PC title. It was clear that the main source of income came from the Call of Duty and Skylanders franchises, with Black Ops II generating $1 billion within 15 days of its launch, and the Skylanders series making $1 billion worldwide. Activision will now be investing further in its famous FPS series, a new project from Bungie, and "Call of Duty Online" for China.

Across the US and Europe last year, Call of Duty was the number one video game franchise, closely followed by Skylanders in third. By the end of December, Black Ops II had the highest engagement in the series' history, and with Call of Duty 2013, the company hopes to raise the bar even higher. Bungie's new project will apparently "deliver genre defining innovation" and more will be revealed in the future.

On Blizzard's side of things, Diablo III has sold 12 million copies since its launch in May 2012, and World of Warcraft has 9.6 million subscribers, which is down from the previous quarter. Blizzard All-Stars and a brand new MMO are in development.