Activision: Mobile is "a double-edged sword"
iOS COD unlikely as "We don't want to spread our roulette chips around the table" - Hirshberg
Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg has maintained that the firm will resist a full move into mobile gaming.
In an interview with the New York Times, Hirshberg claimed that Activision would remain focused on core games, despite major competitors such as EA increasingly moving to iOS. "There are 400,000 apps in the iTunes app store," he argued. "I don't want to be number 400,001."
Instead, Activision planned to use services such as Call of Duty Elite, which will see iOS and Android apps, to support its console brands. "What we're trying to do is use new technologies and new devices in gaming to strengthen our core business. We don't just want to go and spread our roulette chips around the table."
To this end, he did not feel a mobile version of Call of Duty was impending, although he admitted the new platforms held some appeal. Mobile was, he claimed, "a double-edged sword - on one hand you have a huge install base, but what we are not doing is just shotgunning all of our games onto mobile."
However, Activision is more determinedly exploring mobile with its impending cross-media Spyro project.