How the mighty have fallen. Then gotten back up, dust themselves off, and fallen again. But yet, gotten up again. That’s basically the story of Sega over the last seven years or so as the once mightily publisher has flipped and flopped about, eventually merging with Sammy. Yet, despite all of this, they have no interest in joining forces with anyone else.

Sega’s Dreamcast was, in many minds, the last great old school console. The games were a mix of arcade ports and Japanese styled classics. When it died many hoped that Sega would bring its superb blend of games to other consoles as a third party. They did go third party, but the great games didn’t come with them. Instead, Sega as a third party basically drove itself out of business before Sammy stepped in and saved it. (more…)

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Bobby Kotick is a happy guy right now. With the upcoming Vivendi merger, which will bring Blizzard and World of Warcraft under the Activision umbrella, the sky is the limit for what Kotick’s company can do.

At the recent Morgan Stanley Technology Conference in California, the CEO of Activision discussed how they would use Blizzard’s expertise in the world of online gameplay to help open a new door for some of the company’s best selling titles. Starting with the Guitar Hero franchise, Kotick proposed using Blizzard’s “institutional expertise” to bring PC editions of Guitar Hero to the “roughly 300,000 game rooms between China and Korea.” This would be a feat definitely not insurmountable considering the popularity of the title and the fanatical gaming community in Korea. (more…)

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While it was recently announced that EA had approached Take Two Interactive with $2 billion dollars to buy their company, it seems Take Two is getting around.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, Take Two reported that since EA’s offer the company has received additional offers described as “informal indications of interest in a business combination.” However, no specific companies have been named.

With top titles like Bioshock and Grand Theft Auto under its umbrella, it seems Take Two feels, like Epic VP Mark Rein, that their company is worth far more than what EA would like to offer. In a press release on their website Executive Chairman of the Board Strauss Zelnick stated that EA’s offer was rejected due to providing “insufficient value to our shareholders and comes at absolutely the wrong time given the crucial initiatives underway at the Company.” (more…)

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When it was rumored the other day that Epic might be acquired by Microsoft, Epic’s Vice-President Mark Rein joked that they should start the bidding at $2 billion. Apparently Electronic Arts thought that price sounded about right for another big time company, Take-Two Interactive. Take-Two is the parent company of 2K Games and Rockstar. So, essentially, Electronic Arts might soon be the parent company of Bioshock and Grand Theft Auto.

While Electronic Arts continues to be the monster that ate everything in video game land, this move actually makes some sense for Take-Two. While occasional hits keep the company afloat, there have been many bombs and Rockstar has shown its only truly viable franchise to be Grand Theft Auto, with the possibility of Bully. Meanwhile, EA Sports has basically pushed 2K Sports to the point of starvation by acquiring exclusive rights to many popular sports leagues. 2K Sports does retain the exclusive third-party rights to Major League Baseball. (more…)

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