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After Marvel and StarWars could Disney eventually buy Blizzard . ?
roo67
Member Posts: 402
I dont think its out of the bounds of possibility . Maybe not in the short term but in the long term certainly .
Comments
Don't see it happening personally.
Blizzard, besides WoW(which, by the time they'd sell it, would be dead) has nothing.
Maybe if Titan is as big of a success as Wow...then maybe.
But i think blizzard is down and out after wow personally.
The Deep Web is sca-ry.
only time will tell if tht happens or not
but hope not we need more diversity we wont get tht chance if 1 company owns evrything
as of now we can vote w our wallets if disney or any other company owns all mmos we cant
Given Blizzard make apparently about 900 million dollars a year and disney make around 35 billion it wouldnt be out of the bounds of possibility they would pay maybe 5-6 billion at present but a lot depends on how Blizzard continues to perform in several years if it is not doing as well it is now then they could pay 4 billion which is what they paid for Marvel and StarWars .
Only if Disney is offering a stock-for-stock merger + incentives I think. Otherwise I don't see it happening.
If they try to do it forcably with cash will ended up with similarly ugly situations to the Oracle vs Peoplesoft merger - where both company have financial resources to counter-offer each other and both company trying to agressively fight for controlling rights.
If Disney bought a game developer, I think they'd want one that would support their other business by using Disney's IPs and launching together with their movie launches on multiple platforms.
Blizzard is used to doing things quite differently from what Disney would be looking for.
A more likely buyer would be microsoft in my opinion. Ea would love to get their hands on blizzard too, so they can use it to detoxify their brand by calling all their studios blizzard south, blizzard UK etc.. much like they did with bioware before destroying them. but thankfully they couldn't afford it.
I can see Microsoft though, they would love a big name with lots of good will to push windows 8, valve would be totally out of the question, so your looking at blizzard or bethseda.
If Disney were to buy a video game company they would buy one they could force to make games based on their IPs.
Even though Blizzard hasnt been an independent developer for a while they have always been given independence to do what they wanted.
Unless Disney is deciding to become a major video game name, I don't see this happening. Blizzard does have a movie worthy IP, with a lot of history behind it, but Blizzard does not have a movie franchise. Disney would have to build the franchise from scratch. With Marvel and Lucas Arts, they bought the companies because they had a fully functional movie franchise setup already going.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Considering the price of Acti-Blizz is what 10B or so, Disney is actually one of the few that has the cash to pull this off.
Only other western companies (excluding non-game companies like Nike) are Apple and MS.
Just because they have the cash doesn't mean they will and I can't see Disney buying something this big for so little to add onto their 'Disney' IP though.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Disney had no interest when they were approached this summer
http://www.vg247.com/2012/07/13/report-vivendi-may-have-sell-activision-shares-on-the-open-market/
Bloomberg’s reporting that Vivendi’s having a hard time selling its stake in Activision. According to sources close to the matter, the companies Vivendi has had discussions with either don’t have $8.1 billion lying around, or the companies with the funds to spare aren’t interested. Discussions with Disney, Microsoft, Tencent, and Take Two have all taken place
Vivendi Finding ‘Little Enthusiasm’ in Selling Activision
Microsoft and others “not actively considering a bid.”
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/07/13/vivendi-finding-little-enthusiasm-in-selling-activision
Vivendi is having trouble finding a buyer as it attempts to sell off its 61% stake in Activision. News earlier this week indicated that Microsoft and Time Warner were among the potential buyers Vivendi was looking to approach, but reports now indicate that there has been little momentum in actually selling the company.
According to Bloomberg, there has been “little enthusiasm among potential suitors,” which include Microsoft, Disney, Tencent and Nexon. Microsoft “isn’t actively considering a bid” (though a source says “that could change”). As Bloomberg notes, Microsoft "would have to consider that buying Activision may jeopardize sales of the company’s Call of Duty games for rival consoles made by Sony and Nintendo."
Meanwhile, Disney “is unlikely to bid” according to “a person with knowledge of the company’s plans.” Chinese company Tencent (which Activision recently announced a partnership with) and Japanese company Nexon were also approached but don’t have sufficient cash to fund a purchase of Vivendi’s stake in Activision, said to be worth at least $8 billion. [Update: To clarify, as commenters below have pointed out, Nexon's headquarters are in Japan, but it was originally founded in South Korea.]
EQ2 fan sites
Activision-Blizzard is not worth 20 billion nor even asking price is that big. It is rumored that Vivendi for it's control packet of 61% shares was asking 10 billion $ inititally, then it was rumored that it was lowered to ~8 billion $ and still no obvious buyers.
Of course there might be some back-stage negotiations and all 'rumors' that noone wants to pay that much might be negotation strategy, but there never ever was 20 billion price attached to it. Even if someone would want to boy 100% shares from Vivendi and miniority shareholders it would not be 20 billions $.
No matter how cynical you become, its never enough to keep up - Lily Tomlin
But a microsoft buy out makes much more sense than a Disney one.
1 ms want to push the win 8 store thing, merging it with battlenet would be great for them.
2 games devs are avoiding the win 8 platform as they fear closed shop and ms taking a cut console style with future win versions. Ms need a big well liked games company on the platform - there's 4 such companies really - valve who would never go back to Microsoft, bethseda who are owned by the wealthy zenimax and have strong ties to Sony, rockstar who hardly fit microsofts family friendly image and with being UK based might cause problems with eu antitrust laws, which leaves blizzard
3 there were those rumours of blizzard working with bungie a few years back on Titan
4 Microsoft could screw apple over by not releasing blizzard games on mac
5 Microsoft could screw sony over by not releasing activision games on Sony
6 they could get a mmo on xbox, no messy contract negotiable around xbox live
7 they could screw over valve with win 8 store / battlenet game delivery service.
Well vivendi tends to be in the business of buying not selling,although ANY business is for sale if things are not going well.Back when Vivendi was strguggling bad,setting a record loss,they offered up their gaming studio at under market value and nobody wanted it.
So if Vivendi and the new partner were to foresee any losses ,i am sure they would sell.This realistically will not happen for quite some time,Wow is a super cheap game to run ,makes a ton of profit and their other games are also designed to run cheap,so unless we see the main giant Wow start to tumble,any thoughts of selling are as far away as the Sun.
TGhey also make profits from COD franchise as wel lother games are stil doing well,no way any buyer gets this operation unless they pay way over market value and that would be bad business.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
1,2 - Blizzard is one of the developers to speak out against Windows 8
3 - Blizzard never worked with Bungie on Titan, Bungie's upcoming MMOFPS will be published by Activision
4 - Blizzard has been one of the most ardent supporters of Mac
5,6 - Blizzard has no interest in consoles
7 - Battle.net is only for Blizzard games and no plans to turn it into a Steam competitor
It's actually kinda funny because all those points have no relevance when money is put on the table.
Where did I say blizzard don't support the MAC? but you can be dam sure Microsoft would like them not to.
There was talk of blizzard and bungie working on a halo mmo.
Where's Bungie? Where's the Stamper brothers from Rare? Where's Peter Molyneux from Lionhead? Gone, that's where. They all left Microsoft.
Microsoft isnt going to pay $4 billion just so they own the WarCraft license which is why they havent put in an offer yet even though Blizzard has been up for sales for months.
Neither Blizzard nor Bungie had anything to do with the cancelled Halo MMO. It was being made by Ensemble Studios. 1 minute and Google would have shown you this.
I don't think you understand how business works, there is no Blizzard when the money hits the table, there is a diverse group of shareholders who will look at the P&L and balance sheet, and make a cold decision based on their idea of future profits vs the cash on the table. As I said if the money is on the table your points are irrelevant, ALL that matters is the ratio of profit to offer.
Sure you do, but Activision-Blizzard do have plenty on cash and short-term assets and in deals like that previous owner does not extract all cash right after basic terms are made with buyer. Billions deals are very detailed about stuff like that.
Whole deal would not cost Disney 20 billions $.
And Vivendi is owned by a diverse group of shareholders who ultimately make that decision, the board of Vivendi have to justify their decision to those shareholders based on financial reasoning, NOT as Xiaoki stated because of reasons like "Blizzard like Mac" and other reasons based on emotional investment in the name of a gaming company or those running it day to day.
You might be right, no one might make an offer.