Home Gaming Rock Band developer Harmonix up for sale

Rock Band developer Harmonix up for sale

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The music genre is declining – rapidly. With the recent release Rock Band 3, MTV and Viacom (owners of Harmonix) are now looking to offload the development studio. Rock Band 3 received very good reviews, but the sales have not reflected this at all.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Viacom has just announced a 59% drop in profits and as a result is hoping to recover some losses through the sale of Harmonix. There are obvious companies waiting in the wing as possible buyers.

Electronic Arts has been the publisher behind the Rock Band label in the past. They are a possible candidate. According to analyst Michael Pachter, however, Activision would stand to gain much more by adding Harmonix to its collection of development teams.

As owners of the Guitar Hero franchise, Activision would essentially erase the competition by purchasing Harmonix. Of course, this purchase would bring with it a certain amount of symmetry seeing as how Harmonix is the original team behind the Guitar Hero franchise as well.

According to Harmonix themselves, however, the impending sale is not affecting their day-to-day functionality: “This morning’s announcement does not affect the ongoing work at the studio as we continue to support our existing franchises, Rock Band and Dance Central”

Source: CVG

Last Updated: November 12, 2010

One Comment

  1. Geoffrey Tim

    November 12, 2010 at 16:22

    I’m almost keen for Activision to swallow Harmonix – and give us just one biennial awesome music game. one every two years would probably still sell well, bolstered by constant dlc releases

    Reply

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