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Microsoft to Buy Vivendi Games Division?
Unknown Relic writes "While far from confirmed, it is reported that Microsoft is seriously looking into buying, or
may have already bought, Vivendi's Games Division. For those who aren't aware, Vivendi owns several prominent gaming companies, including Valve and Blizzard! While no official announcements have been made, one is apparently expected soon. While this would doubtlessly be a great boon to Xbox's library, it could be a shock to other consoles as titles which were originally planned for a diverse release become Xbox exclusives."
Microsoft Buys Vivendi? 9:40 AM - Andrew "Andy" Burnes - Game Biz.: General News - (119)
Well I was sitting on the fence with regards to posting this earlier after I heard of this from various sources but now Computer & Video Games has posted the story. As the article mentions this would mean that Microsoft would control the publishing rights of Half-Life and this would certainly make the rumour of Half-Life 2 being Xbox exclusive more of a reality:
If insider speculation is to be believed, Microsoft has bought US publisher Vivendi, with an announcement to that effect due soon. Take a deep breath and reflect on the implications of that, if true.
Half-Life 2, Warcraft, Counter-Strike, Crash, Spyro, Lord of the Rings... Vivendi has an enormous portfolio boasting some of the biggest titles on all formats, and it would be an ultra-smart move on Microsoft's part to snap them up. Such a buyout, of course, would come at a terrifically high price, making the 365 million acquisition of Rare look like peanuts. But if anyone has the necessary funds, it's Microsoft.
Furthermore, an email from Universal was accidentally sent out to developers last week stating that all work on GBA titles should be suspended. The email was promptly recalled and branded an error, but could it be that this was in some way tied in with this alleged deal?
We contacted Vivendi for comment and a spokesperson told us: "We've heard all sorts of rumours over the past months - Activision, EA and many more. They'd all like to get their hands on Blizzard. I guess Microsoft are one of the few companies that has enough money."
If this is true as various sectors of the press believe then we should be seeing an official announcement on Friday. So Microsoft now has its hands in Valve, Blizzard and others if this is true... Dark times or more security for developers considering Vivendi's habit of dropping underperforming studios?
I am me...I think
Well this makes the quote that Bill Gates said they couldn't be a monopoly because they weren't in the game console market as well, even more funny...
Vivendi does not own Valve, Sierra published Half-Life and it stands to reason they'll publish whatever else Valve does, but they don't own them.
Schnapple
This means we'll see Commander Clippy on the battlefield in StarCraft II. :/
I know they are desperate and only a year ago their was a total of 7 games for the xbox and that was it. They sell each unit at a $150 loss and are actually paying developers not to release games for the competition. Does anyone see a future monopoly here?
Sega is gone and nintendo might be next. Sony will take a long time to kill but its possible ms can majorily harm it.
Again it relates to Microsoft using money obtained from one monopoly and using it to crush competition in another which is illegal under the sherman anti trust act.
What really sucks is the drm signed code that is required to run a game. This makes ms the gatekeeper. If they were smart they would make it free for anyone to write games for it and then use the signed code feature on the xbox-2.
http://saveie6.com/
If this is true, this could indicate that Microsoft is ready to go on another spending spree and part with some of that $40 billion dollars. I suspect that they'll start buying companies up again, now that they've won/lost the anti-trust case. They waited a while for things to cool down, and now they are going to heat things up again as it were.
Sony should terrify MS. The playstation is rapidly starting to evolve into the long awaited "computing appliance" and it doesn't run windows (tho it can run linux).
You're darn right MS will lose billions on xbox and will use it's multi-billion dollar slush fund to line up as many key players on its court as possible because when game consoles start doing word processing and browsing the internet, guess who wants to the OS you use to do it?
Buying vivindi and getting Blizzard (!!!!) and Valve and every fantasy MMORPG (present and near future including World of Warcraft, Eve, and MIDDLE EARTH ONLINE) that ISN'T everquest is just a perfect match from Microsoft's perspective.
Rumors of buyouts have been swarming the gaming world recently. Nintendo will buy Sega. Microsoft will buy Sega. Nintendo will buy Capcom. EA will buy Capcom. Nintendo will buy Sega AND Capcom. Microsoft will buy Nintendo. Sony will buy General Electric (ok, so I just made that last one up). You get the idea.
Please. Until you read about this from Microsoft, Vivendi, or on legit gaming sites, assume that somebody made this crap up and are just looking for web traffic.
Despite everyone's assumptions, nothing called "Half-Life 2" has ever been announced or talked about by anyone connected with Valve. Team Fortress 2 has been shown publicly, however.
No Warcraft for you, heretic!
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Ever consider thinking before posting? Microsoft has owned www.zone.com for YEARS now and they only charge for 'premium' games, like Asheron's Call. For online retail game matching (ala Battle.net), NO CHARGE! Never has been.
This could be the spark of some real creativity as a slew of ideas gets to be tried.
A game franchise is only a franchise for so long. We need new franchises. There is 50Mu PS2's out there vs 8.3Mu for Xbox.
This means that new idea can make money with a low penetration PS2, something that is not possible for Xbox. Say, 1% equates to half a million titles sold for the Sony camp or 80K for MS. Where would you put your bet?
Help fight continental drift.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
"Hey, It looks like you're trying to rush the Terran Base! Would you like help with that?"
Tip to break off the diablo2 addiction (I wasted most of two summers on it):
Repeat after me:
1) roaming episode5 and episode3 endlessly looking for eq is not fun
2) there is no ultimate point to this game. Once you've figured out how to survive you need to figure out how to make big levels. Once you've figured out that to make big levels you need great eq, the whole game becomes a mechanical combing for quality eq. There's no fun in that.
3) there are 100's of more worthwhile things to do with your time than killing mephisto again and again in hope that he'll pop some nice eq.
4) When you finally realise the above 3 truths, you will be ashamed of having wasted so much of your precious time on this earth on such a worthless occupation. The amount of shame or anger you will feel is directly proportional to the time you will have wasted... so stop now!
Daniel
Carpe Diem
We can't have Diablo III running under Winex now, can we?
Buy 'em out, boys! (cue maniacal laughter)
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
If this is true then only a few people know about it. I work at Microsoft Game Studios and I haven't heard a thing. We just recently did some staffing changes in managment in order to manage Rare. We would have to do another huge re-org in order to absorb Vivendi. I've heard nothing along those lines. If we bought Vivendi then my team would have to double in size and haven't been told to do that.
*Sony or Nintendo buy game developer, make all its products exclusive to their respective console*
Slashdot Crowd: "Oh, bummer. Anyway....."
*Microsoft buys game developer. Makes all of its content exclusive to the Xbox*
Slashdot Crowd: "OMG! Evil conspiracy! Even though Sony and Nintendo have bought out multitudes of companies and made countless games exclusive (which is what makes a console survive in the first place) the very fabric of morality must be dissolving as we speak!"
Microsoft is only following the example set by their predecessors. Bitching at them more than you would bitch about another company doing the same thing is hypocritical and it severely weakens your argument.
It really, really sucks when a game you desperately want to play is only coming to a console you do not have. That is, however, the very nature of the business and exlcusive content is what makes or breaks a console.
I don't like business monoplies, I don't like to think that one company is attempting to control everything, but in this case I'm not worried.
Why?
There are two, very well-established and very skilled competitors who are trying to do the same thing. (though, Nintendo isn't so fierce). They are both using the same tactics, and they are both surviviing. I feel the pressure has made the industry better. There is now so much being put into getting the best hardware and the best games out there that the quality of the hardware/software lineup we are seeing now and will see in the future will be based on the struggle to not be left behind. A strong aversion to resting on one's laurels will pervade the console gaming industry.
So, when people talk about Microsoft being a big, bad guy in the console gaming world, I just chuckle, knowing that the next Sony and Nintendo consoles will be that much better than they would be otherwise. The two companies have no choice.
I for one, am glad the Xbox is here.
PS2 and GameCube fans should be, too.
Except when that game you wanted is picked up by a competing console. Even then, just grin and bear it. Your day will come....and then it will come again, and again and again.
Things in the console world are better than they've ever been.
You just have to open your eyes.
but I am still not going to buy an Xbox. For that matter I won't get a CE Pda, cell phone either.
Sure, it's childish, but I really don't care. It is not about how good the machine is, it is about principle.
Anyone that lets *one* company be the source for a large number of things in their life is a fool plain and simple.
Why do you think business likes more than one source? It's so that source does not screw them over when things get tough. That is what happens to us when we are stupid enough to limit our choices.
This applies to everyone, like it or not.
Someday in the future, you might use your MS PC to send e-mail through your MS ISP that contains a picture encoded with your MS codec to your friend who better be using a MS capable machine in order to see anything you wrote or produced.
Later that day you are interested in their thoughts, so you call on your MS phone on your way to work, where you use more MS products and services. You wind down at the end of the day with a game or two, maybe some pay per view media with your MS entertainment console.
Your bank is intergrated with your MS computer so the fat MS bill comes out at just the right time each month.
Now lets say most of us do this. Who is in control of our lives and choices? What incentive would MS have to act in our best interests?
Exactly none.
That's why I will not ever buy an X-box...
Blogging because I can...
please, not Battle.NET!? =\
A more reliable rumor now circulating among game mags and their informers is that Half Life 2 is actually coming quite soon. The nature of the project has changed a bit, though.....
Apparently the President of Valve has spent A LOT of time in Redmond.
*coughXboxExclusiveTitle*cough*
If the intent of "Xbox Exclusive" remains "It will come out somewhere else later on, almost always the PC" I will have no problem with this. The PC community is needed for modding. The Xbox can be where people go to play the game, and its mods with a performance guarantee.
SDL is the cross-platform answer to DirectX, and its only serious competition. Blizzard employs Sam Latinga, who originally developed SDL and whose fulltime job is to continue to develop it. I find it hard to believe that Microsoft will allow Blizzard to continue to develop SDL by employing Sam, unless they are subjected to a serious amount of scrutiny about it. It is obviously in Blizzard's interest as a game company to support SDL, but that will certainly change if Microsoft controls them, and given that Microsoft has understandably not shown the slightest fear of trustbusters lately, I expect them to act fairly promptly to rid themselves of this little thorn.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.