Together...shall Activision and Vivendi be, after their $18.9 billion merger. Vivendi owns Blizzard Entertainment, creators of 9 million-plus seller and pop culture wunderkind World of Warcraft, and Activision recently overtook Electronic Arts as the most profitable game publisher thanks to blockbuster franchises Guitar Hero, Call of Duty, and Tony Hawk. The newly created conglomerate, named Activision Blizzard, will become the largest game publishing company in the world. The stock market seems to be responding positively to the news, while others are saying this move will be bad for gamers.
Unsurprisingly...in the same press release, Activision confirms that Guitar Hero 4, Call of Duty 5, and Tony Hawk 11 are in the works. Yes, eleven.
Gerstmann-gate...continues, with the latest shot made my Gamestop, claiming that advertising pressure has nothing to do with Gerstmann's sudden and controversial firing. Gerstmann, the editorial director for game review site Gamespot until Thursday, was recently fired after his review of Eidos' Kane & Lynch: Dead Men was published. An inside source at Gamespot claims that Gerstmann was fired "on the spot" due to advertising pressure from Eidos; at the time that the review was published, ads for the new literally covered the front page of the site. Many suspect Gerstmann's firing is a conflict of interests; a campaign to virtually boycott Gamespot and its host CNet has been started by angry gaming community members.
Nintendo...shows us how to make online friends in the upcoming Smash Bros. Brawl. Unfortunately it looks as unintuitive and inconvenient as most of Nintendo's online community services have been so far (contrast Nintendo's 12-digit Friend Codes unique to every game with Microsoft's streamlined Xbox Live service).
PS3 shows signs up life...after reportedly more than tripling sales during the week of Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
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