Radical Entertainment will be laying off about 100 employees, almost half of its staff, the company confirmed Wednesday. "Activision Blizzard has elected at this time to reduce the number of titles that Radical is developing from four games to two," Leah Rubin, Radical's vice-president of human resources, said in an email. "Therefore, we will be proportionately reducing the size of our studio." The reductions come in the wake of an ownership change last month that create Activision Blizzard.
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- Activision's June Quarter Net Revenues Increase 32%; - Activision's stand- alone net income for the June quarter was $59.0 million, compared to net income of $27.8 million for the previous fiscal year's June quarter. - Activision Blizzard's CY 08 Financial Outlook Exceeds CY 09 Targets.
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Publisher Activision used its recent earnings release conference call to discuss North American hardware sales forecasts for the 2008 calendar year. In short it expects the Wii to sell 6m units, Xbox 360 to sell between 4-5m units, while Sony’s PlayStation 3 will remain in third place, with 3-4m units. On the handheld front, the Call of Duty and Guitar Hero publisher expects combined sales of Nintendo’s DS and Sony’s PSP to top 10 million units.
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There've been conflicting messages from the industry and its analysts on whether band games might be on the wane. Compared to its predecessors, sales for Guitar Hero: World Tour generally raised some flags for retailers and analysts. Fear not for Guitar Hero: World Tour? Cowen Group analyst Doug Creutz says the title's still white-hot -- or would be, if consumers could find it on the shelves.
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No, there is no official confirmation by Blizzard at the moment, but the tracks that will leave the North American company which will be his next project are becoming very obvious
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Thanks to "continued declines in the music genre," Activision yesterday announced that it plans to not only "discontinue development on its Guitar Hero game for 2011" (read: cancel it) but also to "disband Activision Publishing's Guitar Hero business unit." But what about the DJ Hero franchise, and the promising DJ Hero 3D, you ask? "We will release no new music or skateboarding games," CFO Thomas Tippl said of this calendar year.
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Activision has acquired Wii and DS developer Budcat Creations. The studio has previously worked with Activision on Guitar Hero titles Legends of Rock, World Tour and Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. Budcat's management team have signed multi-year employment contracts with the publisher. Back in September, Activision acquired another of its Guitar Hero partners, the UK studio FreeStyleGames.
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"Activision acquired UK-based developer FreeStyleGames, part of the company’s plans to expand its music game business and work with local content producers. The developer is currently working on localized content for Guitar Hero: World Tour."
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Blizzard Entertainment (Under Activision Blizzard) will release World of Warcraft localized for Latin America in select markets starting in the first half of 2008. The game will also be made available for Spanish-speaking residents of the United States and Canada at that time. A dedicated Spanish-speaking team is being assembled to provide 24/7 support. This move should continue to broaden the market of the world's largest and most popular MMO as well as increase company revenue and value.
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The plot thickens: "Yesterday Harmonix told PS3 owners of Rock Band that the reason Guitar Hero 3 controllers wouldn't work on their game was because Activision blocked it. 'Not so fast,' says Activision in a statement emailed to us moments ago."
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