Call of Duty Elite launched last fall to coincide with the rollout of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, the fastest-selling entertainment product of all time. Elite is the online counterpart to MW3, offering stats tracking, in-game competitions, game strategies and more. The service had some rough moments at launch, but most parts of Elite are up and running now.
Chacko Sonny, head of Beachhead Studio -- the Activision Blizzard division in charge of Elite -- explained that the app includes four main components, mirroring most of the major features from the Elite website:
Further, Sonny emphasized that the Elite iPhone app is a 1.0 release and that the service will progress both on the console, the web, and the mobile apps.
Call of Duty Elite for iPhone launches tomorrow, Tuesday the 10th, on the App Store. An iPad version is promised "shortly thereafter".
Chacko Sonny, head of Beachhead Studio -- the Activision Blizzard division in charge of Elite -- explained that the app includes four main components, mirroring most of the major features from the Elite website:
- Career Summary: A "back of the baseball card"
assessment of the players stats, and a way to look up other players
cards and statistics
- Recent Matches: "Fantasy football analysis" of recent games played
- Challenges: Track challenges in-game (achievements for performing certain tasks or leveling up a gun) and allows players to find the quickest ways to level up and have that information by their side while playing.
- Custom Classes: Perhaps the most useful feature, gives the player the ability to make any changes to custom classes and push those changes to the game. Sonny noted this was the most common way that beta testers used the app.
Sonny told MacRumors that with Elite available
on three very different platforms -- console, the web, and now the
iPhone -- the difference in form factor between the interfaces was
important: "it's smaller from an interface standpoint. We didn't want to
shoehorn the website or console experience onto a smartphone."
Beachhead's designers made sure the Elite app felt native to the iPhone.
- Recent Matches: "Fantasy football analysis" of recent games played
- Challenges: Track challenges in-game (achievements for performing certain tasks or leveling up a gun) and allows players to find the quickest ways to level up and have that information by their side while playing.
- Custom Classes: Perhaps the most useful feature, gives the player the ability to make any changes to custom classes and push those changes to the game. Sonny noted this was the most common way that beta testers used the app.
Further, Sonny emphasized that the Elite iPhone app is a 1.0 release and that the service will progress both on the console, the web, and the mobile apps.
We view this as the foundation. We want to hear from
the community: how do they use this? What parts do they like? What parts
aren't as useful? We want to drive additional development going forward
from people who play the game every single day. That's going to help us
deliver a better set of iterated features going forward, and for the
forthcoming tablet version as well.
The app will be free, and will be
available to all Call of Duty Elite users -- there is a premium Elite
membership available that includes free downloadable content and some
other goodies, but that doesn't affect the mobile app -- though there is
no sign-up from the app itself. Users must enroll via the website or
the Elite app on either the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 first. The Call of
Duty Elite app only works when connected to the Internet via 3G or
Wi-Fi.
Call of Duty Elite for iPhone launches tomorrow, Tuesday the 10th, on the App Store. An iPad version is promised "shortly thereafter".
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