Activision-Blizzard for sale?

[garyopa]

Vivendi is said to discuss Activision unit sale on June 22!



Apparently, Vivendi executives are considering offloading games business in reorganization...

According to a Bloomberg report, the industry's largest third-party publisher, Activision-Blizzard might be for sale.

Looks like senior executives of Vivendi (Activision Blizzard parent) are meeting on June 22 to determine whether they want to sell the telecom giant's majority stake in the game developer.

The main scenario to be discussed is a sale of part or all of Vivendi’s 61 percent stake in Activision, the maker of “Call of Duty” with a market value of about $13 billion, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the meeting is private. Vivendi has met with investors in the past weeks to discuss options, one of them being a spinoff of pay-TV unit Canal Plus, which is 20 percent owned by Lagardere SCA (MMB), said one person.

Vivendi jumped as much as 5.3 percent in Paris and Activision fell as much as 6.2 percent in New York. A sale of Activision would be an attempt by Chairman Jean-Rene Fourtou to unlock value from assets he has said are at a discount because of the holding structure at Vivendi, which also owns Universal Music Group and phone operators in France, Morocco and Brazil. Fourtou will lead the weekend retreat in Corsica, which starts June 22 and will be attended by top executives including Chief Executive Officer Jean-Bernard Levy, as Paris-based Vivendi looks for ways to reverse a 28-percent slide in its stock price in the past 12 months through yesterday, the people said.

Activision declined to comment.

Seems that big changes could be in store for the VG publisher. We will see what they've decided in the upcoming weeks!

NEWS SOURCE #1: Vivendi said to discuss Activision unit sale on June 22 (via) BloomBerg
NEWS SOURCE #2: Activision-Blizzard for sale (via) GameSpot

Our thanks to 'Gauss' for this news item!

[Battlefield]

This is a good move...Selling when they are at the top, because they know that Activision isnt worth **** without COD.

They also know that COD is milked so much that the downfall is closing.

Sell it before its not worth anything is smart.

[tech3475]

This is a good move...Selling when they are at the top, because they know that Activision isnt worth **** without COD.

They also know that COD is milked so much that the downfall is closing.

Sell it before its not worth anything is smart.

Depends on how long people buy COD.

Will it keep going like Fifa or get milked to death like Guitar Hero?

I know Acitivison-Blizzard have a few more games, but the markets will go by the COD/WOW figures and if COD2013 sells badly expect their stock to plummet.

[DEDDOA]

Just Imagine if EA bought them, each game would require you assign a credit card to your game account as you will be charged by the minute as you play of their largely cloud based games, in a feature they will claim is just making gaming like playing in the arcade where you have to put digital coins in to play, all for our enjoyment. All games require the full rrp to buy the box which only contains a code to allow you to load up the menu before paying for the game, as the game was always meant to be a nice menu and the actual levels are their way of extending the enjoyment of the menu game at a reasonable cost (reasonable being relative as in if you pay you play, if you don't you just paid £50 for a menu that does nothing).

They will then use a large chunk of the money made from this pay as you play arcade to make sure all their games get the 10/10 they deserve considering they are paying for the reviews, so you will get the likes of IGN telling us how they have never played a menu like this before and it's the best game ever (actually they may already be doing that part, given some of the disparity between user reviews and game site ones).

[garyopa]

I know Activison-Blizzard have a few more games, but the markets will go by the COD/WOW figures and if COD2013 sells badly expect their stock to plummet.

Remember Activision has a ten-year contract with Bungie, so whomever grabs this fire sale of deal, will get all the titles released by the former Halo developers.

If it does go up for sale, I see someone (ie) M$ since they got the bucks, buying it and forcing all releases to be exclusive!

[Battlefield]

Remember Activision has a ten-year contract with Bungie, so whomever grabs this fire sale of deal, will get all the titles released by the former Halo developers.

If it does go up for sale, I see someone (ie) M$ since they got the bucks, buying it and forcing all releases to be exclusive!

I think it would better if MS bought them, because we already know what happens to developers EA when they get their hands on them.

Maxis, Bullfrog, Westwood, Criterion, Origin ++++... Do i need to say more?