Rumours aside... this makes sense if Bliz want to make in-roads into console based gaming.
 

I think I'm going to throw up.
 

This makes sense in so many ways businesswise, that you'd wonder something like this took so long. Vivendi games would already be gone without WoW.

Next step for Blizzard is consoles, Vivendi isn't a really viable partner to conquer the console market. So they probably looked for something like this for a long time. It isn't like Blizzard needed Vivendi anymore, it was the other way around for more than 2 years, with WoW paying Vivendi's debt.

I do not see anything bad about this. Activision get Blizzards expertise in the asian and PC market, while Blizzard gets a very strong backup to reach consoles again. Bring back The lost Vikings now. Thanks.

Though it gets weird for WoW China now, where WoW is published by The9, wich EA holds a stake in, and EA being the competitor for Activision on a global scale.

The numbers that surface around this now are impressive, with WoW generating 1.1 billion in revenues for 2007, resulting in around half a billion in net profit. With Activision neglecting the MMO market for years, this makes even more sense now.

Thumbs up from me for this deal. The recent Bioware aquisition from EA is way more worse than this, wich now causes even more trouble. EA now is handling three expensive potential "WoW-killers" (WAR, Bioware's MMO, Spore) and their most viable competitor now getting the most successfull game right now.
 

"I think I'm going to throw up."



Why?
 

Hmm... Vivendi used to have Sierra. Whatever happened to them...?
 

Next step for Blizzard is consoles, Vivendi isn't a really viable partner to conquer the console market.

Ahem, Vivendi is not a partner with Blizzard, Vivendi owns Blizzard. Blizzard is just one of four divisions of Vivendi Games, Sierra, Sierra Online and Vivendi Games Mobile being the other three. Sierra and Sierra Online handles console games there.

But I agree with the comments on the benefits for either side.
 

Chrismue is correct.

Activision is very strong on the console publishing front, even edging EA out in fiscal 07. Blizzard's top in the PC market, with 4 of the 5 top-selling PC games ever, as well as an established online and subscription-based infrastructure (something Activision notably lacks). It makes total sense to put them together.

Vivendi Universal will own a majority stake in the new company being formed from all this (Activision Blizzard). It's not so much Vivendi buying out Activision as it is Vivendi marrying their daughter (Blizzard) to Activision and investing in that marriage.

PS. Sierra still exists, just smaller. They own game IP like Spyro and Crash Bandicoot still, as well as having recently put out games like F.E.A.R. and World in Conflict.

--Rawr
 

Thanks to this official info about this merger.....

Now we know how many subscribers there's now in WoW.

World Of Warcraft, which currently has over 9.3 million subscribers worldwide