halo 3

The weekly battle for the “Most Played Game on Xbox Live” continues this week with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare still holding the #1 spot for 4 weeks straight and managing to keep Halo 3 from retaking the throne. I had a chance to talk with quite a few of the Bungie guys at GDC this past week, mostly at the Microsoft party, and I could tell that neither one of us were going to slip off the top of the charts without a fight.

With the release of our Feature patch and DLC coming closer and closer every day, and plenty of new playlist ideas being thrown around for Call of Duty 4 multiplayer I know we can keep the fight going for a long long time. I love these weekly number checks because it provides a great opportunity to give you guys a weekly update on how things are going here at the studio with those updates, so with that said…

I got word that the Xbox 360 Feature patch could be ‘very very close’, I can’t tell you exactly when because they haven’t passed on that information but apparently certification went fantastic and I was given the Green light to take care of some things that I have to do before it goes live to you guys, which means good things. I’m not going to get any hopes up, but I hope to be seeing some new Kill Cams by the weekend if we’re lucky. Don’t hold me to that though, but I have a good feeling about it.

The Ps3 Feature Patch has officially made it’s way off to Sony and has been going through the certification process, this one should be a rather quick turnaround hopefully so I’m not expecting too much delay on this at all. I will keep you updated as much as I can on it’s progress.

Hit the jump for DLC talk…

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I’m heading out to the 1 up Awards now and wanted to make a quick note regarding the weekly round of Top Games on Xbox Live over at www.majornelson.com and it looks like Call of Duty 4 is holding fast on it’s lead at #1!!

I’m going to be talking with Major Nelson later this week (tomorrow or the next day) on his Podcast here at GDC and I’m sure the “ping pong” match for the “King of Xbox Live” between Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3 will probably be amongst the things we talk about.

Well, I’m off to the awards, I’ll post another quick update after the awards and let you know how we fare. Thanks everyone!!

Update –

1up Awards re-cap:

10:00 PM and back at the hotel after the 1up Awards. We didn’t take home the top prize this time, the 1up Readers Choice GOTY award went to the well-deserved Bioshock.

There’s another award show tomorrow night, the GDC Choice awards, I’m gonna try to make that one, not sure if it interferes with any interview schedules yet, but if not I’ll be sure to attend and let you know how that one goes! Gonna go to sleep a bit early tonight as interviews start first thing tomorrow morning and go all day long so I’ll need the rest. See ya tomorrow guys!

The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is coming up next week and I’ll be in San Francisco all week. While I’m up there though I’ll be stopping by the 1up Yours Show along with Bungie’s community manager Brian Jarrard to talk video games…. and stuff. I plan on playing it by ear for the most part (those tend to be the most entertaining interviews) as well as discussing community involvement I’m sure.

1up Yours plans to be doing daily shows the week of GDC and look to have a lot of great guests all week long. Details on the show below, and hit the jump for the full schedule straight from the producer’s blog.

WEDNESDAY, 2/20

1UP Yours: “Shoot ‘em Up”
Robert Bowling, Infinity Ward & Brian Jarrard, Bungie

With our two games respectively battling it out for the #1 spot on Xbox Live, I’d say it might be an interesting show to see the different approaches each of our studios take. I’ll of course have a recap next week after the show.

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This week we’re seeing the result of Round 2 for the fight up the Xbox Live charts for the prestigious “King of Xbox Live” spot and according to Xbox’s Major Nelson, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has once again taken the #1 spot of the most played game on Xbox Live for the week of 1/28 away from Halo 3.

This battle for the #1 spot has been causing a surge of “Call of Duty 4 vs Halo 3″ articles and forum debates, and I don’t think the question is necessarily as easy as “which game is better”, because that’s all just opinions. Both amazing games, the question I have is who will stay on top, and do I think we can stay on top?

So can we stay on top? Yes.

Why do I think that? Well…

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