Gaming Studios
Vivindi Universal (formerly Havas (formerly Sierra)) have announced that they will be co-publishing certain franchises with Fox Interactive (formerly, well, Fox Interactive) for the next three years. Aliens vs. Predator 2 will be one of the games released under the new deal, as well as Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza, a shooter based on the first firm. Perhaps the best news for gamers in this is that the last franchise mentioned is No One Lives Forever: The Sequel (I hope they come up with a catchier title). Fox had announced that they were withdrawing from the gaming market and I guess that this is their graceful way to back out, and it is a very graceful exit indeed. I can only imagine the uproar if they just dropped everything and abandoned those games. Any one of them being canceled suddenly would have caused gamers to have fits on a scale unheard of, but I can't even imagine the reaction if all of them were dropped at once. This is definitely a win-win-win deal for everyone; Fox gets their games published and can back out, Vivindi gets access to some fairly well established brands, and gamers actually get the games. It's nice to have some really positive news for once.
Interplay Endorses Piracy
Interplay has announced an expansion for Starfleet Command 2 that isn't really an expansion. Star Trek: Starfleet Command - Orion Pirates (yes, that's the entire title) will, in case you couldn't guess from the title, have a new campaign in which the Orion Pirates are at the heart. Unlike most expansion packs, this game won't require the use of the original game and will be playable on it's own. There will even be a handful of missions based on the episode A Peice of the Action from the original series. Now I'm not a Star Trek fan, but as I recall that particular episode involved a planet that based their society around gangsters as a result of some cultural contamination. Since Starfleet Command does involve just ship to ship combat I really have to wonder exactly what these missions will be. Are these mobsters going to engage in drive by shootings of the Enterprise? They also announced that Orion Pirates will feature a "dynaverse", a dynamic multiplayer environment. Okay, not really, but I can hardly mention an expansion to Starfleet Command 2 without mention of the long promised, never delivered feature.
Ubi Soft Experiances Mild Inflation
Ubi Soft has bought a lot of companies in the past year; Red Storm and GAMES Studios (formerly Mattel Interactive (formerly The Learning Company (formerly a lot of little companies))) were gobbled up by them recently. So how is the business of buying other game companies doing? It seems to be doing well, but it's hard to be sure. Ubi Soft announced that in the past year they've sold 259.8 million euros worth of games which was an increase of 39.4% for them. They made a profit of 79.5 million euros on that which is a big increase of 52% for them. That sounds great, except that they factored in all the positives from the companies they purchased while ignoring the losses from them. In the tiny footnote at the end of their press release it mentions that net sales were considerably less at 211.8 million euros (an increase of 13.5% for Ubi Soft) and no mention of how much profit or loss on that was taken. I don't think Ubi Soft is doing horribly, but we might be seeing the first sign that they've over extended themselves here. Any company that goes on a buying spree like Ubi Soft has (or The Learning Company and Eidos did in the past) bears scrutiny since their purchases often leave them vulnerable to shifting financial situations. Ubi Soft at this point is far from the doomed position, if every company that exaggerated a bit on their financial earnings (especially when they're not held to the same strict rules that companies whose stock is traded in the US are) was a sign of impending doom then there wouldn't exactly be much industry. It could be an early warning sign, though.
-- Joel
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