Yeah, that totally hasn't worked out for the CoD series so far.
Sales-wise, Activision's done fine w/ CoD games.
Though, most people thought Treyarch's CoD3 for consoles was decent, but definitely nowhere as good as any of the Infinity Ward CoD's.
We'll have to wait and see how CoD: World at War turns out as a game, just to see how right or wrong Cliffy B is. I'm sure it'll still sell like crazy b/c it is a CoD-based game, regardless...
How's UT 3.1 coming?
LOL @ the above.
I think Cliffy B might be referring to, in his experience w/ shopping a franchise around that it didn't work well, to how Gears PC turned out, since they didn't port it themselves. People Can Fly ported that for them, whom they happened to buy out, actually -- and well, it had some minor issues (namely that damn stuttering issue, namely).