Modern Warfare 3's Content Season detailed

Modern Warfare 3 will be getting five pieces of downloadable content, or "content drops," in the next three months, with a plan of twenty drops total in the next nine months, Activision announced today. This confirms our report last year that the game would receive twenty pieces of DLC. However, there's a slight play on words here. 

According to Activision, the DLC releasing on January 24, which contains the maps "Liberation" and "Piazza," make up the first two content drops, which, after confirming with Activision, means that each map or game mode is a single add-on entity. This if further backed by today's announcement reading, "Activision will release five different content drops on three occasions in January, February, and March..." Again, two of the five are this month. This is not to be confused with the idea that the two aforementioned maps make up a single content drop.

The third content drop will come in mid-February, and the last two of the announced five will hit in March. In addition to each separate content drop, Activision will run "specialized events for real-world prizes throughout the nine-month season." Modern Warfare 3's Content Season will not only release multiplayer maps, but Spec-Ops missions, new game modes, and more.

All content drops will occur once a month for premium ELITE members through September, and March will also see the first Modern Warfare 3 "Content Collection," which will contain the first three month's add-ons for purchase by anyone on Xbox Live.  Details about other platforms and pricing will be coming at a later time.

Call of Duty ELITE mobilizes on iOS tomorrow (now), next week on Android

At long last, and a less than favorable launch on consoles, Call of Duty's ELITE service will be available for free tomorrow on iOS devices, and Android devices next week. 

The app will act like its console brethren, in that you'll be able to check your stats and "general player information on yourself and others you've played, " as well as the After-Action Report of the last ten games you've played. You'll also be able to track your progress across the game's various challenges, and lastly, and perhaps the best of the lot, you'll be able to modify and save custom loadouts on the app. Once saved, they will be updated the next time you boot up Modern Warfare 3. 

Chacko Sonny, head of ELITE's developer Beachhead Studios, also commented on the PC version of ELITE as well the long-awaited clan features. In terms of clan features, Sonny said the studio wants to make sure that "it's ready to go before we actually release it out into the wild and create more frustration.

In regards to the PC version of ELITE, that's "definitely still a priority for the studio," Sonny said. "We're heads-down, working on all the stuff that we know the community wants."

The ELITE app will later be optimized for tablets after everything is running smooth on their smartphone counterparts. 

First Modern Warfare 3 DLC hits ELITE subscribers on January 24

[Update: Above is a screen of one of the maps in the first pack, simply called, "Park."]

Modern Warfare 3's season of downloadable content will begin for Xbox 360 gamers on January 24, Infinity Ward's Robert Bowling announced on Call of Duty ELITE's "Roll Call" program. Specifically, this is for ELITE subscribers on Xbox Live. As usual, the content will hit other platforms at a later time.

Every piece of Modern Warfare 3 DLC is developed by a team consisting of Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer Games, and Raven Software, and will run the spectrum of multiplayer maps, "Spec Ops" missions, and "a variety of things that players have never seen before." Other than that, no details on the first add-on have been revealed.

Folks can check out "Roll Call" on ELITE, so long as you have a paid subscription.

ELITE is now "up on its feet," says Activision

After weeks of struggle, Call of Duty ELITE is now operational, or "up on its feet," as Activision's Daniel Suarez said to Joystiq.

"It was a lot of hard work from where we were two weeks ago, which was an embarrassing place," Suarez said. "And now we're at a place where we're confident people will be able to enjoy the service."

However, the team is still looking at fan feedback, and in addition to fixing active bugs with ELITE, Suarez noted that Activision is pushing out updates everyday in response to comments on Twitter.

With ELITE in effect on web and consoles, and for both free and paid accounts, Activision is now looking toward releasing the mobile versions of ELITE, and hopes that either the iOS or Android version will be launching next week. "We may stagger with the release of those but likely one of them will launch next week," Suarez added.

In terms of downloadable content, Suarez said details would be coming out soon, as in "the coming weeks." For now, though, be sure to check out the premiere of Friday Night Fights tonight, which pits the US Army against the US Navy in Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer.

Call of Duty ELITE's Friday Night Fights premieres this week, pits Army vs. Navy

Call of Duty ELITE is premiering their Friday Night Fights program this Friday, November 25, and will pit the U.S. Army against the U.S. Navy as they settle their rivalry with "epic mulitplayer battles" in Modern Warfare 3.

Executively produced by Ridley Scott and Tony Scott's RSA Films, and directed by RJ Cutler, Friday Night Fights is available exclusively to premium ELITE members, though non-premium members can catch replay streams after it airs. Will it hold you over until the free map packs start dropping?

ELITE garners one million members in six days

Despite the current struggles plaguing the service, Activision announced today that one million members signed up for Call of Duty ELITE in six days, and there are four million members in total to date. Additionally, more than 80,000 ELITE clans have been made, and over 100,000 videos have been uploaded.

Activision compared the time it reached one million members to other subscription services, such as Netflix, Hulu Plus, Sirius XM and Xbox Live, which reached a million members after approximately one year. 

As of now, ELITE is set to be in a good state by December 1, a little under a month since its November 8 launch.

Call of Duty ELITE to be up by December 1

Call of Duty ELITE is still suffering from its bumpy start when it released a few weeks ago, with heavy server overload restricting customers from using the new social networking service.

Daniel Suarez, Activision's VP of production told G4 that, while it is the company's fault for not having the service up and running on November 8, they do plan to have everything up to snuff by December 1.

December 1 would be just shy of a month since the service's launch, which would mean consumers will still have the amount of service they paid for, due to the recently announced extra month of service Activision added to subscriptions to make up for the mess.

600,000 ELITE subscriptions sold through GameStop

GameStop has sold close to 600,000 subscriptions to Call of Duty's new ELITE service to date, retailer president Tony Bartel said to Gamasutra. These sales are contributing to GameStop's digital sales front, which management says will exceed the company's internal expectation of $450 million for the current fiscal year.

"In the case of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, we worked closely with Activision, Sony and Microsoft to pre-order and deliver nearly 600,000 instances of the Modern Warfare ELITE DLC to date," said Bartel.

ELITE is now positioned as one of the company's top 10 launches of the year thus far.

Call of Duty ELITE is the series' new subscription-based social network, which for $50 per year grants players all of Modern Warfare 3's downloadable content and other goodies, though has been off to a shaky start so far.

Yesterday we learned that Modern Warfare 3 broke five-day sales records, garnering $775 million worldwide.

[Image via LA Times]

UPDATE: Bummer. ELITE may not hit PCs

[UPDATE: The official Call of Duty ELITE Twitter account says ELITE on PC will happen: We misspoke. Our goal has always been to provide a free PC offering for ELITE. Stay tuned for an update as timing is still being determined.]

While the console applications for Call of Duty ELITE are suffering some heftic traffic and server problems at the moment, and the iOS/Android versions are currently delayed, at least we can say that they exist, which may not be the case for the PC version of Call of Duty's new stat-tracking, social networking service.

Eurogamer spotted the following tweet regarding ELITE on the official Call of Duty account: "We are working towards a universal ELITE experience but we cannot guarantee if or when a version will be available for the PC."

This is quite different to the status update given a week ago, where we learned that the PC version of ELITE had only been delayed to make it more secure. Now it seems as if those fans will be left out altogether.

It's hard to say what to believe at this point, but all we can do now is hope for the best.

ELITE's mobile app release delayed

In fear of adding more stress to the already crowded servers, Activision has delayed the release of the Call of Duty ELITE mobile application. 

A FAQ on ELITE states the following: "While many people are curious and excited to use Call of Duty ELITE's mobile applications, we plan to release the iOS and Android apps when we're sure the service will be able to handle the extra traffic they generate--so stay tuned."

Many more questions are answered in the FAQ, so if you're confused about your Founder status or account information, you best head there.

Premium ELITE memberships gain 30 more days, effective immediately

Call of Duty's ELITE service is slowly being repaired, and is currently stated in "intermittent" service. If you don't already know, ELITE met an unprecedented amount of users attempting to register, so the servers have been crammed since Modern Warfare 3's release on Tuesday.

As of now, ELITE's registration and login services have been rectified, and new servers are currently in the process of being added in order to accomodate the high demand of users. Some may be able to get into ELITE, and perhaps see their stats, but for those who can't need not fret--Activision assures us that everything is safely stored. 

Many users have paid for the premium ELITE membership, and to compensate the current hoopla of outages, Activision announced that premium members will gain an extra 30 days on their accounts, effective immediately. Those who register by the end of the month will also be granted the extra time.

So, this now makes the 12-month subscription a 13-month one, for the time being, anyway. 

ELITE service is improving, says Activision

With the astounding number of Modern Warfare 3 pre-orders resulting in the largest number of day-one shipments in the industry's history, Call of Duty's new social networking service, ELITE, suffered outages due to an unanticipated amount of users. 

However, Activision Digital's vice president Jamie Berger said the company is "making good headway" with repairing ELITE, and while the huge wave of users attempting to register acts as the biggest problem, the company has since managed to add more gamers to the service. Berger also adds that this outage part of the "terrible birthing pains any new online service goes through."

ELITE developer Beachhead Studios stated on Tuesday that they already registered "hundreds of thousands" of users, and that a team is working around the clock to increase capacity as quickly as possible.  Things should be normal in due time.

Modern Warfare 3 to have 20 pieces of DLC

It's no surprise that Modern Warfare 3 will have its share of downloadable content in the near future, though it appears more content will release this time around than ever before.

Twenty pieces of downloadable content are said to release over a nine month period, as noted on ELITE's "What's Included" page, and this spans not only the multiplayer portion of Modern Warfare 3, but the "Spec Ops" mode as well.

ELITE members will get every piece of DLC for free, and will be able to keep them even when their subscription expires. Does that entice you to snag a year subscription?

ELITE's registration servers are bottlenecked

With the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 comes the launch of the franchise's new social networking service, ELITE, which is currently being bombarded by an unprecedented amount of users. ELITE developer Beachhead Studios, however, is on the case.

Posting on the ELITE status page, studio head Chacko Sonny stated, "Registration requests for our new live service Call of Duty ELITE are exceeding even our most optimistic expectations, which is creating a bottleneck and some players have not been able to register."

"We have already registered hundreds of thousands of players and we are working around the clock to increase our capacity as quickly as possible."

Seems you'll have to wait just a little while longer to make use of ELITE's features. 

Call of Duty ELITE hits Xbox Live

Call of Duty's social networking service, ELITE, is now available for download on the Xbox Live Marketplace. 

The console app itself is a free download, and registering will net you 2-hours worth of Double XP time. Those who wish to get more out of ELITE can of course opt for the $49.99/year premium subscription, which will unlock more of ELITE's stat-tracking, gun-toting features, and will also grant you all of Modern Warfare 3's downloadable content.

Connect, compete, and improve with this behind the scenes look at Call of Duty Elite

"What the heck is Call of Duty Elite?"

If you find yourself asking this question, then it's a good thing a brand new behind the scenes look at Call of Duty's new online service was released today. In it, Elite developer Beachhead Studios tells us the ins-and-outs of the service, and explains how connecting, competing, and improving all intertwine to make one cohesive service. 

Call of Duty Elite "Premium" priced, explained

The "Premium" version of Call of Duty Elite has been priced at $49.99 a year, and while it may sound a bit steep to those who aren't "hardcore" players of the series, those who are could find some good in the package.

It goes without saying at this point, but Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will shell out downloadable content during the course of its life, and Premium members will be able to get access to all add-on packs before they release to the public. 20 pieces of content have been confirmed--including multiplayer maps, Spec Ops maps, and new game modes--and when bought separately there are said to total $60.

Clan support is also being heavily supported, as Premium members will be given the opportunity to level up their clans by kicking ass in tournaments and competitions. Activision's Eric Hirschberg compared this aspect of Elite to a fantasy football team, except that the players you are counting on to win and level up are your real life friends.

Those who love to upload and share videos will be pleased to hear that Premium members will have eight times the amount of save space compared to everybody else. And speaking of videos, expert strategies will be posted regularly on Elite, offering "high production value" content explaining the ins and outs of weapon tactics and map layouts.

There's other bits of content coming to Premium members as well, including Elite TV, a Hollywood-produced series of episodic videos, and Noob Toob, a series with funny men Will Arnett and Jason Bateman which, I won't go into because, who really cares about Jason Bateman?

Also confirmed at XP, the Hardened Edition of Modern Warfare 3 includes a free year of Premium membership to Elite, so those who were already going toward buying the high-end edition of Modern Warfare 3 will get everything noted above for free.

[via Destructoid]

Official: Call of Duty: Black Ops "Annihilation" Map Pack Dropping on XBL June 28

The previously teased next installment in the Call of Duty: Black Ops DLC tour has now been confirmed, and the "Annihilation" map pack will [of course] be available first on the Xbox 360 on June 28. The pack contains four new multiplayer maps--Hanger 18, Drive-In, Silo, Hazard--and a new "Zombies" map Shangri-La, "an exotic and mysterious map filled with deadly traps, dark secrets, and innovative gameplay..."

Oh, and by "new" we mean the multiplayer map Hazard is based off the World at War map Cliffside, but it's a "complete re-imagining" of it. Um, that's fancy for "re-skinned."

You can see the the official Press Release and a video preview of "Annihilation" below, but I leave you with this: if Megadeth isn't playing on the map Hangar 18, I'm rioting.

People Really Want to Try Out Call of Duty Elite

According to Dan Amrich, Activision's social media manager, over 2 million people have enlisted to beta-test Call of Duty Elite--this accrued in less than two weeks, mind you.

If you don't already know, Call of Duty Elite is a paid service that will allow players to form groups, compete against each other, and share game films. Basically, well, from the sound of it, Elite allows you to do everything you can do now, for free, but at a "premium" rate.

To take part in the free beta and see what it's all about, check out CallofDuty.com/Elite.

via GameInformer

**Press Release after the break**