You can no doubt imagine the kind of shambling corpse that’ll be trotted out as Guitar Hero 6 (or whatever it ends up being called), and that’s not even bringing up the inevitable band-specific, re-release and handheld versions we can no doubt expect from the series.

Call of Duty, though, that’s a little more interesting. With this month’s Modern Warfare 2 developed by Infinity Ward, next year is a “Treyarch” year, with rumours suggesting the game has moved completely away from the Second World War and will be set in an era with not only more menacing Russians, but better music as well.

As for Spider-Man, yeah, he’s back, along with a Shrek game that’ll no doubt be based on next year’s Shrek movie.

Good ol’ Activision. They’re nothing if not dependable.

Activision Blizzard had kind words for the Guitar Hero and Call of Duty franchises, which apparently many of you bought over the last three months, helping Acti-Blizz zoom past its projected $US700 million quarter. CEO Robert “Bobby” Kotick pointed to “positive audience response to Activision Publishing’s Guitar Hero 5, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, and the Guitar Hero and Call of Duty franchises, as well as Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft.”

The company also claimed that in September sales of music games in the US increased 72 per cent year on year, which “demonstrates the sustained interest in this new and important game category”. So, nothing to worry about!

Kotick seemed similarly pleased with the company’s expected ability to “deliver record non-GAAP operating margins based on the strength of the Call of Duty franchise and high consumer anticipation for Modern Warfare 2, which we project could be the largest entertainment launch of the year.”

No one can deliver non-GAAP operating margins like these guys. No one.

Ubisoft’s combined sales for the first two quarters of 2008-2009 were €344 million ($562 million). A year later and that figure drops by 52 per cent, down to €166 million ($271 million). Half of those sales were in the second quarter of the year, when Ubisoft released Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash Up, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Academy of Champions, making the total of €83 million ($136 million) in sales seem a bit on the high side, all things considered.

The low sales figures translate into an operating loss of €80 million ($131 million), compared to an operating income of €33 million ($54 million) during the same period last year.

Despite the low numbers, Ubisoft remains optimistic. While the company’s first half may have been weak, it’s looking to make up for it with a lineup of big releases during the third and fourth quarter of the fiscal year. Assassin’s Creed 2, James Cameron’s Avatar and Rabbids Go Home are all expected to be big titles in the third quarter, generating an estimated €540 million ($882 million). With that in mind, Ubisoft confirmed its guidance for the fiscal year, aiming at sales of €1.04 billion ($1.7 billion).

The revision takes some ¥4.9 billion off their net income – about $US53 million US – in the first half of this fiscal year (which spans April 1 to March 31). Originally, Square had been planning on 7.5 billion yen in the first half of this fiscal year; it’s now predicting ¥2.6 billion, and for comparison’s sake, at this time last year it had pulled in ¥6 billion.

Square’s income picture for the year fell commensurately; it was lowered from ¥15 billion for the entire fiscal year down to ¥10 billion.

The entire filing [pdf]is available through Square-Enix’s investor relations site if you’re into this sort of thing.

Wii sales dropped by 10 million units during the six month period ending September 2009, and Nintendo has recorded its first decline in profit in six years. Iwata summed up the feeling at Nintendo. “Not being able to continuously release strong software has made a good mood grow cold.”

With upcoming titles like New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Nintendo is feeling more confident about this holiday season.

任天堂：４年ぶり減収減益…「Ｗｉｉ」急減響く　９月連結 － 毎日ｊｐ(毎日新聞) [Mainichi]

In the six months ending September 2009, Nintendo reports that sales and income were “adversely affected by the appreciation of the yen and the price cut on ‘Wii’ hardware.” During that same period, net sales were down 34.5 percent compared with the same period last year. Net income was down 53.4 percent from the same period last year as well — from 144.828 billion yen to 69.492 billion yen in the period ending September 2009.

Nintendo also states that “With respect to ‘Wii’, software titles which briskly drive hardware sales were not consistently launched in the first half of the year.” Selling 5.75 million machines, Nintendo’s Wii sales were down 10.1 million units compared to the same period in 2008.

The company did point out that this holiday season has a strong software line-up for the home console.

How much it lost is either a little or a lot, depending on which accounting principals you prefer to hold your publicly traded companies to. EA raked in $US644 million its first quarter of the 2010 fiscal year, down from the $US804 million it took in the year prior. That’s a $US234 million loss, going by GAAP. It’s a $US6 million loss if you’re going non-GAAP. Regardless of your personal accounting compass, John Riccitiello seemed pleased with the company’s results.

He points to strong sales of The Sims 3, which sold 3.7 million copies during its first month on the market. The company was similarly proud of its Wii Fit competitor EA Sports Active, which helped the publisher double its Wii sales, selling 1.8 million copies during the quarter.

That title, along with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10, EA SPORTS Grand Slam Tennis and Rock Band 2, helped the company secure a 21 percent share on the Wii in North America, a 13 percent share on the Wii in Europe. Not too shabby for a third party!

EA will hold an investors call today to talk more about this money making business, which we’re about to listen to.

In 2006, Sony decided to start tracking how many consoles and games they sold all the way through to customers, not just to retailers (which is how most other companies record “sales”). It’s an admirable practice, and one which gives us a very accurate picture of how the PS3 (and its games) are faring, since these figures have been available for the entirety of the machine’s lifespan.

Anyway, here are the numbers, which cover the period from launch until June 30, 2009:

PS3 consoles: 23.8 million
PS3 software: 189.7 million (all publishers, includes both retail and PSN titles)

During the period, Wii Fit sold 3.6 million units globally (130,000 units in Japan and 3.47 million overseas), bringing lifetime sales for the game to 21.82 million copies.

Mario Kart Wii sold 2 million copies globally (90,000 copies in Japan and 1.91 million overseas). The lifetime sales total for Mario Kart Wii is 17.39 million copies.

Wii Sports sold 1.91 million copies worldwide, selling 60,000 copies in Japan and 1.85 million overseas. The lifetime sales total for Wii Sports is 47.62 million.

Last year during the same period, Wii Fit sold 3.42 million copies, Mario Kart Wii sold 6.42 million copies and Wii Sports sold 4.76 million copies.

According to Capcom, “Lucrative titles, led by Resident Evil 5, helped lift earnings.” Compared with the same quarter last year, net sales were up 36 percent for home video games and operating income was up 32.5 percent.

Impressive in this economy, no doubt!