Kotick: 60% of XBL subs exist for COD

60 per cent of gamers who subscribe to Xbox Live do so primarily to play Call of Duty, Activision Blizzard's head honcho Bobby Kotick has said.

And now Kotick wants to make money out of them.

"We've heard that 60 per cent of [Microsoft's] subscribers are principally on Live because of Call of Duty," Kotick told the Financial Times.

Microsoft charges £39.99 for a 12-month UK Xbox Live Gold subscription, which enables Call of Duty owners to play the shooter online.

Kotick said: "We don't really participate financially in that income stream. We would really like to be able to provide much more value to those millions of players playing on Live, but it's not our network."

Activision's phenomenally successful Call of Duty series has throughout its existence done the business primarily on home consoles.

Kotick wants that to change.

"[Consoles] do a very good job of supporting the gamer," Kotick said. "If we are going to broaden our audiences, we are going to need to have other devices."

Kotick said Activision Blizzard will "very aggressively" support devices that connect PCs to tellys.

Kotick's mentioned broadening Call of Duty's audience before, of course.

Last month he told the Wall Street Journal COD fans were "clamouring" for an MMO-style experience.

"I would have Call of Duty be an online subscription service tomorrow," he said.

For now, though, Call of Duty remains a successful traditional packaged goods product.

Call of Duty: Black Ops, due out for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 on 9th November, is expected to be 2010's biggest game.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/60...for-cod-kotick