I've written a lot about Blizzard (ATVI). It's a fun stock to watch. And the company is pretty fun, too. How can you not like the business behind both Call of Duty and Pitfall?

Those who've read my prior pieces on this subject probably know what I'm about to say in regard to the recent bullishness in the shares: Take profits now. Yes, the stock continues to scare me a bit. Well, maybe more than a bit. I know that the latest Call of Duty title is doing incredibly well at retail, but I also know that Guitar Hero is no longer on every teenager's Christmas wish list. Offsetting elements can be a problem, keep in mind.

Activision Blizzard (ATVI) was, at the time of this writing, off by 3% to a quote of $11.28. Strong volume accompanied the dip. It's a shame, because the latest earnings report wasn't all that bad.

According to the Associated Press, adjusted income of 12 cents per share was three pennies ahead of the consensus estimate. The top line, after taking into account some items, also beat projections. Furthermore, management raised its outlook for the full fiscal year.

Activision Blizzard Inc. (ATVI) is trading down this afternoon. At the time of this writing, the video-game publisher behind the Call of Duty series was off by over 4% to $10.82. Volume was heavy.

That's an interesting move for the stock, because it may be an opportunity for very short-term traders who are willing to take on extremely significant risk. I haven't felt comfortable about an Activision Blizzard trade for a long time. I would love for the shares to dip below $10 at some point; then, I might have reason to start a position.

"As a conservative long-term oriented investor I tend to keep individual position sizes to no more than 5% of the overall portfolio; however in the case of Activision Blizzard (ATVI), I'm building a more concentrated position that I expect to pay off in the next two to three years," says Asif Suria.

In his The SINLetter advisory, he offers 10 reasons why he believes the stock is an attractive core long-term investment. He explains, "My goal is to eventually build this position until it represents 20% of my personal portfolio. Here are 10 reasons behind this decision.

1) Activision released the highly anticipated game Call of Duty: Modern Warefare 2 and racked up $310 million in sales from the United States and United Kingdom over a 24 hour period. With Christmas right around the corner, the final sales numbers for this edition of Call of Duty are going to be much bigger.

Adjusted revenues were up a scant 2%. Earnings per share, excluding items, actually showed a profit of 6 cents. This was a lot better than the loss of 6 cents per share seen in the year-ago frame. The company also managed to generate a small amount of cash from operations in the quarter instead of using a whole bunch like it did last time around.

Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI) published third-quarter results on Thursday after the bell. I can't say I was wholly taken with them. I know the best is probably yet to come once the Christmas shopping season really gets under way, but I was a little disappointed that the company saw a decline in adjusted profit.

Excluding items, Activision Blizzard made 4 cents per share this quarter versus the 7 cents per share made in last year's similar period. Well, did I say I was a little disappointed? Make that a lot disappointed. After all, this is supposed to be the publisher with the best pipeline on the block, the one with the Guitar Hero franchise and a great portfolio of licensed intellectual properties.

Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI) remains confident in its guidance for full-year earnings. According to StreetInsider.com, management is still looking for sales of $4.5 billion on the top line and adjusted earnings of 63 cents per share on the bottom line.

The publisher, which competes with Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS), should benefit from recent hardware price cuts made by Sony Corporation (NYSE: SNE) and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT). With more units in the field, there most likely will be higher demand for Activision Blizzard's awesome pipeline, which includes Call of Duty.

Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS), a video-game publisher that competes with Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI), THQ (NASDAQ: THQI), and Take-Two Interactive (NASDAQ: TTWO), issued Q1 stats after the bell on Tuesday. Things are looking up for the company famous for its Madden brand of football software. Adjusted revenues increased over 30%, and the loss on the bottom line narrowed to 2 cents per share from a loss of 42 cents per share in the year-ago period.

The profit performance beat Wall Street's expectations, as Alex Salkever reports over at DailyFinance. You can check out his article to get the highlights of the quarter and a perspective on the current state of the video-game industry, which includes console makers Sony (NYSE: SNE), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), and Nintendo (OTC: NTDOY).

I was looking around today for a stock to buy. I came up empty-handed. One of my ideas was Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI). I was intrigued this week by reports that said the company wants to have the launch to end all launches for the next Call of Duty title. Quite frankly, I think there's a chance the company will succeed with this. So, naturally, my thoughts turned to shares of Activision Blizzard as a possible buy candidate. Although I already own the stock in a longer-term, taxed portfolio, I wanted a trade for my Roth IRA.

Well, I couldn't buy the company. It's up today (3% at the time of this writing), and I do not want to buy any stock when it's up. Not now, at any rate. The market has come too far too fast, in my opinion, and I want to trade carefully. But, while looking at Activision Blizzard, I came across this article from Ben Kuchera over at Ars Technica. He discusses comments made by the publisher's CEO, Bobby Kotick, on Sony Corporation (NYSE: SNE) and its PlayStation platforms.

Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) hasn't been doing as well as its colleague Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI). Indeed, when it comes to the numbers, Activision, which is responsible for franchise hits Guitar Hero and Call of Duty, has its competitor beat.

But EA recently released an exercise system for the Nintendo (OTC: NTDOY) Wii that was highlighted at CNBC.com. The piece mentions the enormous marketing presence that is supporting EA Sports Active. You get a couple accessories with the software: a leg strap that is used like a controller to interact with the screen, and a resistance band to increase the effectiveness of the workout. Oprah Winfrey's trainer apparently assisted EA with the design.

Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI), a video-game publisher that competes with Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS), THQ (NASDAQ: THQI), and Take-Two Interactive (NASDAQ: TTWO), reported some cool first-quarter numbers on Thursday after the bell. On an adjusted basis, the company earned 8 cents per share. According to analysts, Activision Blizzard was only supposed to do around 5 cents per share.

Not only was the bottom line solid, but revenues on an adjusted basis also came in ahead of expectations. And you can thank the usual suspects for powering up the quarter. You've got Call of Duty. You've got Guitar Hero. You've got World of Warcraft. These best-of-breed franchises are selling a lot of copies on Sony's (NYSE: SNE) PlayStation 3, Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) Xbox 360, and Nintendo's (OTC: NTDOY) Wii.

GameStop (NYSE: GME) reported earnings for Q4 and the full fiscal year on Thursday. As expected, they were very good. Why shouldn't they be? The country is in love with video games, and systems by Sony (NYSE: SNE), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), and Nintendo (OTC: NTDOY) are keeping a lot of people from all age groups occupied. Including myself. I just recently completed Resident Evil 5 for the PlayStation 3.

Boy, I'll tell you, owning Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI) has been tough lately. I love the company's prospects. It's got great franchises: Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, World of Warcraft. It's doing better than rivals Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) and THQ (NASDAQ: THQI). But the stock has been hitting a lot of technical resistance. Not only that, but CEO Bobby Kotick recently sold a bunch of shares (over a million, actually).

Well, in terms of that insider sale, we can all relax. Basically, Kotick was exercising options that were set to expire relatively soon, says Barron's. That accounted for one million shares. Now, he did also sell over 240,000 shares that were stored in a trust. The mitigating factor here is that Kotick operates under restrictions as to when he can and cannot sell stock. So, in an overall sense, we can give him a pass on this one. Silicon Alley Insider supports this sentiment, and talks about another insider's sale in similar terms.

Okay, video-game sales stats are out for the month of January. Please tell me there are some exciting changes in the ranking in terms of which gaming console dominated the charts in the U.S. Please tell me that it wasn't the Nintendo (OTC: NTDOY) Wii -- that would be too boring. Please . . .

Ah, forget about it! There's no suspense to this. We all know that the Wii is number-one yet again. In January, the console moved just under 680,000 units through retail shelves. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) sold over 300,000 Xbox 360 systems, and Sony (NYSE: SNE), once again, came in third place, convincing a little more than 200,000 gamers to take a chance on its more expensive hardware. Believe it or not, it isn't just price that is sending people to the Wii. If it were just price, then the Xbox 360 without the hard drive would be in first place. No, the Wii is turning into one huge entertainment icon.