Game Business – Page 16

A day of woe: EA buys Bioware, Pandemic

’tis truly a sad day in the gaming industry. Two of our most loved game developers, Bioware and Pandemic have been bought by the corporate giant that is EA. Well, I don’t need to list EA’s evils before you, but let’s just say that they are a large corporation, and Microsoft and Sony are also large corporations.

Bioware is one of the most popular and trusted game developers in the industry, standing by the likes of Valve, Epic, Bungie and so on. Their forté was RPGs and not just any RPGs, but really good ones. Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, Baldur’s Gate series, and for God’s sake, Mass Effect, all of them are from Bioware. With EA’s acquisition, we may just be looking at a writhing death for any more awesome titles like these.

Also, Bioware is working on a top-secret MMORPG project for release somewhere in the future. EA is now going to get all the cash. EA’s CFO Warren Jensen stated bluntly: “”In fiscal 2009 and 2010, we expect the BioWare and Pandemic properties to deliver revenue in excess of $300 million annually.” That made me chuckle. Halo 3 brought in that much in a week. But it does make you wonder: Is the Bioware/EA acquisition headed for a model similar to the Bungie/Microsoft one?

Pandemic Studios is famous for its Mercenaries and Star Wars: Battlefront lines of games. They also created Destroy All Humans! and its sequel, two fun games that went unnoticed. Again, all their base now belongs to EA. They have no chance to survive, make their time.

The total deal has cost EA $860 million, which is more than a hole in the pocket. Regardless, it could be possible that EA is not only trying to diversify its portfolio, but gain a substantial lead over its competitors. Besides, Pandemic is known for its LucasArts games (Mercenaries, Battlefront) and one of Bioware’s finest is also an LA title (Knights of the Old Republic). Is EA trying to humiliate LA? Is LA going to strike back? Are both LA and EA fronts of an organization planning to take over the gaming industry? God, I hope so.

Microsoft Bundles 2 Games with 360

Xbox 360 bundle

Just in time for the Holidays, Microsoft has bundled Forza Motorsport 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance in both the Xbox 360 ($349.99) and Xbox 360 Elite ($449.99) packages.

Microsoft is really giving consumers a ton of reasons to buy the Xbox 360 this Holiday season. Price drop, free games, and tons of great new AAA titles has made their offerings indubitably the best on the market today.

It’ll be interesting to see whether or not games like Super Smash Bros Brawl and Super Mario Galaxy will be reason enough for most consumers to buy Wii’s this Holiday seasons than Xbox 360s.

Bungie officially splits from Microsoft, Halo still owned by Redmond

Well, what do you know? Turns out one rumour ended up being real. Bungie has split from big daddy Microsoft and is on its way to become an independent ~~republic~~ company. Of course, Microsoft won’t let one of its slaves off that easy.

It still maintains an equity interest in Bungie and “at the same time continuing its long-standing publishing agreement between Microsoft Game Studios and Bungie for the Microsoft-owned “Halo” intellectual property as well as other future properties developed by Bungie”, whatever the hell that means.

Harold Ryan, speaking from Bungie’s fortress said that their relationship with Microsoft went pretty well and that they will concentrate their next titles on Microsoft® platforms. To cut a long story short, Bungie’s next games will be for the Xbox 360 (and whatever other consoles Microsoft spits out). This means that Bungie is still hugging Microsoft and will probably not let go for quite a while.

Shane Kim, corporate VP at Microsoft Game Studios, said that Microsoft appreciates the work their little slave has done for them and that they will further the Halo franchise with more collaborations, one notable name being Peter Jackson. Of course, no movie specifics were announced. As you can guess, Microsoft talked more about the franchise Bungie created for them rather than Bungie itself.

We hope Bungie evolves to make more kickass games, and we sure as hell hope they move on to something new and original and stop making more armoured-guy-kills-aliens games, please. Thanks.

Halo 3 makes 300 million in first week, Sparta jokes abound.

We brought you news of how Halo 3 dominated the entertainment industries by raking in $170 million on the opening day itself. Microsoft did some boasting some time ago and revealed that they made $300 million in the week, overall. And you’d think Microsoft wasn’t rich enough.

And now, it’s time for some statistics!

3 million copies (approximately) have been sold.
Halo 3 raked in 57% of the $300 million in the American opening day sales itself.
Xbox 360 sales have reportedly doubled.
Considering that one copy was sold to one individual, and my mathematics hasn’t jaded, only 0.04% of the world owns Halo 3.
(Rumour) Halo-Sparta jokes reached an all-time high around time of release.

Well, how can we sum it up now? It’s a major understatement, but Halo 3 is BIG. Express all your Sparta jokes in the comments, please.

[Via Kotaku]

$17+ million: The price of customer service

DS prints money

Remember earlier we mentioned that you could do yourself a favor and pick up some free stuff from Nintendo? No, not the Mario shoes! Those cost $120 a pair.

That’s right, as the law of economics states, TINSTAAFL, which is the actual abbreviation for “there is no such thing as a free lunch.” That means if something is really, truly, honestly free, you are either getting scammed or something else is going on.

Lo and behold Nintendo is paying a small fortune for making sure us wacky customers don’t accidentally break more SDTV’s and Wii Remotes. It’s not as expensive as a certain $1 billion investment, but at least we know Nintendo can handle their money issues well.

Rumour 2: Bungie splits from Microsoft?

All this talk of rumours has me convinced that something big is going to happen real soon. But right now, let’s talk about the rumour specifically:

A guy from Seattle Post Intelligencer Blogs is running around the streets with a doomsday sign in his hands and saying that Bungie has split from their beloved publisher and surrogate mother, Microsoft. Bungie’s record-breaking video game seemingly pleased the big daddy enough to let them be set free.

Microsoft has supposedly chosen not to announce this right now, as it would hurt their quarterly sales of their already well-sold Halo 3. And about the future of Bungie?

They are now an independent entity, no longer licking Microsoft’s shoes. However, Microsoft still owns the Halo franchise, so if anything Halo is going to happen, it’s coming from Microsoft. However, it has been mentioned that Bungie might be interested in making a Halo 4.

I say for heaven’s sake, no! The Halo series has been completed with the end of the trilogy. Something like Halo Wars, sure! But please no Halo 4. 🙁