Vivendi to Sell Activision?

Vivendi may decide to sell all or part of their 61% stake in mega-publisher Activision during an upcoming meeting of senior executives on June 22, according to inside sources with investing analysis website Bloomberg News (a reputable site not known for spreading hearsay).

Bloomberg reports that the Paris-based parent of Activision is looking for ways to raise their stock price, and selling off the powerhouse publisher of Call of Duty, Skylanders, and other major franchises could fetch a pretty penny. Bloomberg lists Activision's market value at $13 billion. For reference, Vivendi purchased Activision for $4 billion in 2007.

Our take? It may seem crazy for Vivendi to part with the most profitable publisher on the planet, but really it could be the ultimate "sell high" move. Call of Duty appears to have peaked (though it is, of course, still massively successful), Skylanders is huge right now, and the arrival of the next generation of consoles in the coming 1-2 years could prove to be a turbulent, unpredictable time, speaking purely from a publisher's dollars-and-cents perspective. This may, in fact, be the perfect time to sell if Vivendi isn't interested in Activision as a long-term business proposition. If it happens, the next question would naturally be, "Who could afford them?" Not many players in the video game space have 10-figure bank accounts...

We'll have more on this story as it develops and as June 22 nears.

Source: Bloomberg




Source : ign[dot]com

E3 2012: Miyamoto Talks Zelda Wii U

One conspicuous absentee from Nintendo's E3 Press Conference was Zelda on Wii U, especially after last year's tantalising tech demo. When asked by Entertainment Weekly about the status of the next Zelda game, Shigeru Miyamoto confirmed that it was still in its research and development stage.

"With the last game, Skyward Sword, that was a game where you had motion control to use your weapons and a lot of different items," explained the creator of the series. "And I thought that was a lot of fun, but there were some people who weren’t able to do that or didn’t like it as much and stopped playing partway through it. So we’re in the phase where we’re looking back at what’s worked very well and what has been missing and how can we evolve it further.

He also mentioned how "simply having the HD visuals in a Zelda game can really make the game look wonderful and give it sort of a high-quality feel".

But perhaps most interestingly is the way in which he once again addressed the potential schism in video games – acknowledged by Nintendo during its E3 presentation – between more traditional, in-depth gaming experiences and the rise of casual games. While he stressed the company's commitment to the former, he also expresses an interest in opening up one of Nintendo's most important franchises to a wider audience.

"One thing that’s interesting is we’re seeing how the way that tastes are broadening in video games, and you have some people who prefer more casual experiences, and you have some people who prefer sort of those more in-depth experiences. Obviously, as a company that’s been making games for a very long time, we tend to be more on the deeper, longer game side of things. But really what we continue to ask ourselves as we have over the years is, 'What is the most important element of Zelda if we were to try to make a Zelda game that a lot of people can play?'

"So we have a number of different experiments going on, and [when] we decide that we’ve found the right one of those to really help bring Zelda to a very big audience, then we’ll be happy to announce it."



Source : ign[dot]com