Activision Blizzard inc. for Sale – Video Games Update
Vivendi Entertainment has announced that it will be selling its majority share valued at $8.1 billion of Activision Blizzard.
Activision announced that it would be merging with Vivendi Games in 2007. Vivendi already owned the popular developer Blizzard, the creators of Diablo, Warcraft and Starcraft games. This news meant that Activision Blizzard would become the largest Video
Game publisher, beating Electronic Arts which was considered the largest before the merger. Activision Blizzard was estimated to be worth $18.9 billion compared with Electronic Arts which was valued at $14.1 billion.
Vivendi claims that if it can’t find a buyer for its 61 percent majority shares then it will sell the shares on the open market. An analyst Michael Pachter stated, “The problem is there are no readily apparent buyers for Activision .... The only option left
to Vivendi is to lever up Activision’s balance sheet and pay out all of its cash as a dividend, then spin the company off.”
This might be a great opportunity for one of the big three, Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft, to become owners of the widely successful Call of Duty brand and the king of MMOs World of Warcraft. Ever since the release of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (COD),
the Call of Duty brand has become a phenomenon and every COD game ever since has sold around 20 million units on Xbox 360 and PS3 combined. Now with the Wii U being capable of running COD, sales might pick up even more.
Then there are the potential profits of bringing the World of Warcraft MMO to consoles. MMO games don’t do so well on consoles but Warcraft might be the one game that changes that.
Apart from Call of Duty and Warcraft, Activision Blizzard also owns the Starcraft brand, which is arguably the best selling Real Time Strategy (RTS) game to date. It is the most played game in Korea and there is a Television channel to show the championship
competitive matches.
The problem is that who can afford this company right now? Sony and Nintendo ended up with huge losses end of the fiscal year. Microsoft was the only one who made a profit on their gaming division, but is the company interested in what Activision Blizzard
adds to their gaming portfolio? It would be a good decision as COD is very popular on the Xbox 360. Being exclusive would give Microsoft a big edge in the First Person Shooter (FPS) market as they will be the owners of both Halo and COD, the best selling FPS
games right now.
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