Sega to Acquire Blizzard...?

OK, maybe not.

But this MSNBC article reports that several large gamemakers are interested in Vivendi Universal's videogame division, which includes Blizzard. Thanks to its former CEO Jean-Marie Messier, Vivendi is suffering from a huge amount of debt, so they're trying to sell off "expendable" parts of the company. Sega's Peter Moore expressed oblique interest in an acquisition:

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Sega told The Wall Street Journal last month that it is in talks to buy U.S. videogame-software houses as part of a larger effort to take on leading U.S. and European game makers in their home markets. Peter Moore, head of Sega’s U.S. operations, said Tuesday that as far as Vivendi Universal’s studios go, “there’s some competencies there that are very complementary to what Sega does,” for instance, PC gaming, which is “not an area that we play in right now.”

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It looks more likely that Microsoft would buy out Vivendi's videogame division before anyone else. But hey, you never know with Sega.

Interesting. If Sega did acquire Blizzard, would the developer stay PC-focused? Probably. But if Microsoft were to buy them I think future PC releases would end up shipping to Xbox first like Halo did.

If MS aquires Blizzard I'm gonna cry... :(

Sega buying Blizzard? If thats true then look out EA!

I doubt it will happen. I still remember when Bandai and Sega were gonna merge. Not that it has any parallells with this though...

I thought Blizzard was a big company on their own? Not MS or Sega big, but pretty big. I would think they doing great with WarCraft3 being a bestseller for last month, and more than 1.5 millino copies sold.

I doubt that Sega will buy them out, they just got out of the financial problems themselves a while ago, and I dont see them buying other companies, especially a well known PC developer.

If anyone is buying Blizzard, it'll be Microsoft, and if Microsoft buys Blizzard, then they win - exclusive Blizzard games = successful Microsoft console.

It'll take more than the one Blizzard game a year (or so) to make a successful console. Blizzard is a great developer, or so I hear, but they aren't the most prolific one out there by a long stretch.

On a side note, I've never been a Blizzard fan. RTS isn't my thing, and I've never seen the appeal of Diablo. Everyone else likes them, though, so I guess that'll have to do. I don't get The Sims either, so maybe it's just me.

James

I really think that Sega wants to enter the PC market with full force, and if the next Warcraft or Starcraft game shipped with a big SEGA logo on the box, their brand-name worth would skyrocket among PC gamers.

Then they would also get the rights to the ports to all the consoles.

I think it sounds like a great move if they can pull it off...

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I really think that Sega wants to enter the PC market with full force, and if the next Warcraft or Starcraft game shipped with a big SEGA logo on the box, their brand-name worth would skyrocket among PC gamers.

Then they would also get the rights to the ports to all the consoles.

I think it sounds like a great move if they can pull it off...

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My thoughts exactly.

Where would SEGA get this 2 Billion from? They aint exactly nintendo or MS.