Big Sequels Revealed as Activision, Vivendi Merge

Good news if you're a shareholder, but what does the coming together mean for everyone else?

The house of Warcraft and the house of Guitar Hero are coming together in one of the biggest unions the world of games has seen.

Expect a sequel to Guitar Hero III

Activision and Vivendi, owners of Sierra, Blizzard and more, announced over the weekend their plans to merge, creating a new company called Activision Blizzard.

The deal brings together some of the biggest franchises in games, including World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, StarCraft and Guitar Hero, and already the company has revealed plans to update some of its biggest games.

In a fact sheet on Activision Blizzard's web site, the company says it's working on both Guitar Hero IV and Call of Duty 5 along with a new James Bond game and an unnamed driving game from Project Gotham Racing creator Bizarre Creations - recently bought by Activision.

It's the latest consolidating move in an industry that is being hampered by enormous development costs and the difficult transition to the new range of consoles. Recently EA, already the 800-pound gorilla of the games industry, acquired RPG powerhouse BioWare and Mercenaries creator Pandemic.

This is obviously big news for the shareholders of the two companies, but what does it mean for the ordinary game buyer? Not much, apparently - at least not right now.

In an interview with GameSpot, Blizzard's Mike Morhaime said that, while there are still talks about logos and other branding issues, "we're not going to put Blizzard Entertainment logos on Guitar Hero boxes and we're not going to put Activision logos on World of Warcraft boxes."

He said that the new company would continue to nurture the creative talent that has brought the companies so much success individually.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo