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Sony liked LittleBigPlanet so much they bought the company, as Media Molecule becomes a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment. More »
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Microsoft could be the next company to drop big cash on a Facebook game maker. Bloomberg reported last week that the Xbox 360 maker is one of the companies in talks to buy CrowdStar, supposedly valued at $200 million. More »
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And you thought you spent a lot of money on Pet Society. EA just spent $300 million on leading social network game creator Playfish, the team behind Pet Society, Restaurant City, and Country Story. More »
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The worldwide leader in family entertainment is about to get a great deal more entertaining, as the Walt Disney Company agrees to acquire iconic comic book company Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion. More »
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Looks like the new home of Mortal Kombat, Joust, Spy Hunter and other well-known Midway properties will be Warner Bros. after all. The media conglomerate looks to have won bidding rights to the publisher and developer by default. More »
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Microsoft Games Studios welcomes another new addition today as Microsoft agrees to acquire Vancouver-based developer BigPark. More »
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Following the successful completion of its £84 million acquisition last week, Square Enix has announced that UK publisher Eidos shall remain UK publisher Eidos. More »
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Timesplitters and Haze developer Free Radical Design has found financial sanctuary in German developer Crytek, who is reported to have purchased the struggling Nottingham, UK dev for an undisclosed amount. More »
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Ubisoft moves into Western Canada today with the acquisition of the Vancouver, British Columbia-based development studio, Action Pants, with a new Wii title already in the works. More »
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Whoa, I didn't even know SouthPeak Interactive swung that way, but apparently they've been Gamecock-hungry for quite some time and aren't too proud to pay for it. SouthPeak today announces that they have acquired wild-and-crazy Gamecock Media Group. 'Cock head Mike Wilson swells with excitement. More »
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GameStop has increased their European presence to 1,077 stores after announcing the acquisition of France's leading video game retailer Micromania. The acquisition covers 332 stores in France, a country where GameStop previously had no presence whatsoever. Congratulations, France. More »
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French Atari parent Infogrames wants to purchase Eidos parent SCi, and has already extended it a "financially disciplined" offer, Infogrames revealed today via a regulatory announcement. More »
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This morning we reported on SEC filings (yes, there have been enough SEC filings to wallpaper my apartment this week) that revealed that Electronic Arts has amended its offer to purchase Take-Two. The previous offer expired today, but EA's back for round two, extending its deadline to May 16th. Although some analysts have speculated that EA would need to raise its offer in order to cinch this acquisition, the same SEC filing also shows that some change has actually been shaved off of the previous bid of $26 per share - the new bid is $25.74 per share. More »
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GTA IV is complete and in production; the trucks are set to begin shipments to retail. This is just one item of positive news that Take-Two's executives touted at their annual shareholder meeting. More »
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Take-Two is apparently the object of a class-action suit by one of its alleged shareholders who claims, basically, that the circumstances surrounding Take-Two's refusal to sell to Electronic Arts are so fiscally irresponsible it's criminal. More »
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When it comes to Electronic Arts' takeover bid for Take-Two, we've heard nothing but silence for the past few weeks. In fact, it looks like business as usual for both companies; while EA's been utterly quiet on the topic, Take-Two has announced an executive hire and an Asian expansion as if nothing were going on. More »
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The Chinese game industry is hot hot hot, and money is burning a hole in the pocket of some of the big players like Shanda. Unfortunately, the hot market has led to plenty of companies overvaluing their worth, and despite capital burning a hole in the collective pocket of the big companies, they're starting to realize that snapping up small companies for massive prices isn't the giant payoff they're looking for: More »
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Over the weekend Intel, the company that spawned countless witty stickers with "(Insert Noun) Inside", announced the purchase of Irish company Havok, creators of the Havok middleware physics engine, which has been used in over 150 games across just about every popular platform today, from BioShock to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. According to a release on Intel's site, the purchase "will enable developers in the digital animation and game communities to take advantage of Intel's innovation and technology leadership in the creation of digital media", where previously they were doing the same thing, only with Havok instead of Intel. Same difference. From what I can determine from the release, Havok will continue business as usual, though I bet they'll have much snazzier stickers. More »
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While the virtual asset/microtransaction/free-to-play models are met with suspicion and derision in some quarters, Free To Play has an interesting analysis up of the challenges facing more traditional channels in the face of declining profit margins and an up-and-coming generation of gamers raised on the Club Penguin and MapleStorys of the world. "North American game companies are taking the same "partner and acquire" approach that they've used to achieve growth and purchase innovation for the last two decades," a model that doesn't work when dealing with some of the Asian companies have theoretical purchase prices that are astronomical. More »
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568 Inc. is a China-based company that has developed card and casual games for the Chinese market, as well as a couple of MMORPGs that I've not seen any press about, and Cryptologic (a company specializing in casino software) has just bought a stake valued at $1.2 million in the company. A lot of Western companies have been trying to make the leap to the potentially really, really, really lucrative Chinese market; the difference with Cryptologic is that they're going after the 'skill based games' sector instead of your average MMO addict. PlayNoEvil notes that this just further blurs the market between online gaming for fun and gaming for profit, and could perhaps open the industry up to more stringent regulation (as if they need it in China). More »
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According to German news outlet Die Welt, EA may already be in talks with developer Crytek to bring them into the corporate fold. EA is already publishing the German dev's upcoming PC game Crysis (Ubisoft did the honors for their other shooter Far Cry), but it looks like the two companies are only in talks right now. More »
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One of the rumors the GamesIndustry.biz staff picked up at the Game Developers Conference was more rumbling about a Microsoft acquisition of the Peter Molyneux founded Lionhead. Creator of fan favorites Fable, Black & White and The Movies, they've run into a rough patch financially. Bill's billions are coming to rescue, allegedly, beating out the also interested buyers at Ubisoft. More »
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