Beachhead Studios, the team working on the Call of Duty: Elite social network, believes everything will be running fine December 1. Elite got off to a seriously rocky start. Beachhead’s VP of Production Daniel Suarez admitted less than 10 percent of the players who tried to log into the service launch week were able to. There was a beta for Elite but it was strictly for the PC. Suarez told G4 Beachhead expected more users would partake of the service on PC because it has more features. That wasn’t the case, as between 80-90 percent of Elite users are logging in from a console.

Activision officials have repeatedly said the company wouldn’t do an online pass program for Call of Duty. It did institute the Call of Duty: Elite program a social network that aids in stat tracking and clan building. The network has both free and paid membership options. Whichever you choose, there’s a strong likelihood you have had problems logging in since the release of Modern Warfare 3, which signaled Elite‘s launch. Somehow, the same publisher responsible for Call of Duty and World of Warcraft underestimated the depth of infrastructure it would need for Elite.

There were more than a few complaints about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2‘s special editions, the most expensive of them cashing in at $150.

That was not enough to deter hardcore players, though, and not enough to deter Activision from selling them again. Elder Geek reports leaked SKUs confirm Hardened and Prestige editions for the PS3 and 360 versions of the game.

The method to Activision CEO Bobby Kotick’s madness now appears. Knowing full well that Bungie was in his hip pocket while “negotiating” with Infinity Ward, Kotick didn’t really need Jason West and Vince Zampella around anymore. Moreover, he needed to be rid of them, their high salaries and creative objections regarding Activision’s treatment of theCall of Duty series.

There’s been an understandable amount of fence sitting in the debate over which shooter is better: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 or Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

The two games are constantly mentioned in the same breath, with most critics content to say both games are great and let fans hash it out. There’s an obvious rivalry between the games.

New York Times reviewer Seth Schiesel, however, is having none of it

Welcome to the first installment of Who’s On Crack (in video games), a concept rudely stolen, er, politely borrowed from another site.The basic idea is this: People do crazy schtuff. Companies, which are run by people, do crazy stuff on a much larger scale. And when you mix fantasy worlds, die-hard fandom and entertainment industry PR, even crazier stuff happens.

Even after losing its top two guys, Infinity Ward is hard at work on its latest and greatest round of downloadable content for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Or is it just Modern Warfare 2?

Either way, the DLC is going to be a timed exclusive out for the Xbox 360 on March 30, 2010, with dates for the PC and PS3 to come at some nebulous later date. This tactic should surprise no one.

What might surprise some people is the tactic being used to promote the DLC. It’s actually rather humorous and not even offensive this time around. Instead, the company has set a website up in order to explain the definition of what it calls “mapathy” which is a, uh, play on words, er, word? Yeah, you get it.

The tail end of 2009 was originally full of high-profile releases that were eventually pushed back. Some may say Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is the chief reason publishers decided to push some of their games to January 2010 and beyond. Whatever the reason, January 2010 is a busy month for videogame releases. Its more »

The Black Friday fun at Sam’s Club includes deals on all of the Big Three consoles.

A sports-filled bundle comes with the Nintendo Wii Console, Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort, Wii Play, Winter Sports 2, World Championship Athletics, two Wii Motion Plus accessories, two WiiMote controllers and two Nunchuk controllers for $349.00.

There’s also a…

With the holidays getting closer faster than a runaway sleigh, it’s time to start thinking about presents.

It’s really frustrating when you just don’t know what to get for someone but if that someone likes video games, you’re in luck.

If you are shopping for a video games fan, there are different options and stellar games this year, so to make things a little easier, here are a few suggestions based on the most popular categories…