Activision Publishing today announced that Treyarch's latest title, Call of Duty: Black Ops, has shattered both theatrical box office, book and video game sales records for five-day worldwide sales. The massively popular FPS (first person shooter) title generated $650 million in its first five days, beating Activision's previous record of $550 million, set with last year's title, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

 

Black Ops also set new records on Xbox Live, the most popular Call of Duty arena, logging more than 5.9 million multiplayer hours on launch day. The service also saw more than 2.6 million unique gamers playing the game on launch day.

 

 

 

Even though Black Ops has seen phenomenal sales worldwide, gamers around the world have been complaining about several bugs and issues in all versions of the game, most notably on the PC and PS3 side.

 

PS3 owners apparently suffered from freezes, frame drops and terrible multiplayer matchmaking, while the PC version has been labelled by some as unplayable. PC gamers worldwide have been complaining about graphical issues, glitches and bugs as well as horrendous lag in both the single and multiplayer game modes. The issue is apparently caused by a memory problem, with users reporting that Black Ops hogs way more than is needed, using 100% of CPU memory in some cases.

 

Treyarch is scrambling to release patches for the game and is apparently “looking into it”. According to the GameServers.com forums the lag is related to an internal game bug. We here at TechSmart have been unable to play our PC version since launch, encountering unassailable errors at every turn. Our Xbox 360 copy works without a problem though.

 

While the game scored high for the console versions, the PC score on Metacritic averages a ridiculously low 3.7 out of 10. Treyarch had better come up with solutions soon, or they may risk alienating a large player base. 

 

 

As two of the gaming world's most fierce competitors, most of us wouldn't dream of a merger between Microsoft and Sony. In a recent interview with CVG however, David Reeves, ex-deputy president of Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, stated that rising development costs may one day force the two companies to contemplate a joint venture.

 

“Eventually, it may just become so expensive to develop that Microsoft and Sony say, 'Okay, let's get together'. I'd say it's between 10 and 15 years away.” He did note however that the industry landscape may have drastically changed by then saying, “it might be different players of course. It might be Google getting together with, dare I say, Microsoft, or Google with somebody else.”

 

 

Today the gaming world was treated to the first screens of Project Draco, a game which will see players guiding their winged steeds through the air with the help of Microsoft's motion-based Kinect peripheral. Project Draco is the brainchild of Yukio Futatsugi, inventor of Sega classic on-rails shooter Panzer Dragoon.

 

Apparently the game will have you and your fire breathing friend fighting against other dragons and players and will also let players “nurture and learn to communicate” with their dragons. Unfortunately no release date information is available as of yet.

 

 

 

 

With the Halo series done and dusted, game developers Bungie, now working under the all-powerful heel of Activision, is apparently looking for volunteers to help test out future titles from the studio. Posting on its official website, Bungie called for gamers to take up the challenge and “help us shape our glorious future”.

 

Volunteers will have the chance to help with game improvements, surveys, game playing habits and of course, Alpha and Beta testing of the next Bungie game. All you need to sign up is a Bungie.net account and valid email address.

 

 

 

Portal, Valve's surprisingly popular (and amazingly fun) 2007 first person action puzzle title, is receiving a full fledged sequel next year. Unfortunately however, Gamespot reported that the title will delayed slightly and is now scheduled for an April 20 launch in North America and Australia and an April 22nd launch in Europe (and South Africa).

 

The second game will feature a single player story twice as long as the first as well as a very intriguing looking co-op mode. Check out the video below for a taste of some delicious Portal 2 action.