Activision plans to launch iTunes alternative

by Alan Tsang { Jul 10th 2008 at 9:00PM }

Most of you should know that two days ago Activision merged with Vivendi's games division Blizzard to form the new publisher Activision Blizzard. The chief executive of the new company, Bobby Kotick, told the Financial Times today the company plans to create an iTunes alternative based off the Guitar Hero franchise. Kotick feels this is "the natural evolution" and Guitar hero has the "potential" to be a "credible alternative to iTunes."

These plans, of course, emerged at least partly due to Activision now having access to Universal Music, which is owned by Vivendi. Vivendi is also known to have payment processing capabilities in "virtually every country." The newly formed company ain't kidding around -- with $3.5 billion dollars lying around that was originally going to be used for a tender offer, there are rumors of them after everything from the Beatles catalogue (which iTunes failed to gain access to), to entering the bidding for Take-Two. Will Activision finally get its act together with the new sources it has at hand? Rock Band has obviously become a major threat by taking market share for rhythm games away from the profitable Guitar Hero franchise. Thoughts?

Tags: activision, activision-blizzard, blizzard, guitar-hero, GuitarHero

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

rohan @ Jul 10th 2008 9:10PM

ok if Activision Blizzard manage to get Take Two away from EA then they will be a company to be scared off. GH, WOW, Starcraft 2, Diablo III and then add GTA 4. Wow just wow

RigaMortus @ Jul 10th 2008 11:21PM

sweeet i hope they buy out take 2 so ea doesnt kill it

Averna @ Jul 10th 2008 9:39PM

Guitar hero became a threat to itself imo.

MakaiOokami @ Jul 10th 2008 9:46PM

I think my Activision boycott will soon be over. Blizzard takes a while but they have some of the largest support for video games i've ever seen. Therefore I can probably expect quite a bit more from the Guitar Hero franchise especially since Activision won't be the one entirely in charge. I feel that my days of feeling screwed over will be at an end much sooner than anticipated. I really felt Activision was just trying to screw us over by releasing like 20 DLC packs while Rock Band has over 150 and growing, and for cheaper. I think this buy out is the type that we can all expect to gain from.

acidwolvers @ Jul 10th 2008 10:00PM

Guitar Heroes of Warcraft FTW!! :)

Brett from Atlanta @ Jul 10th 2008 10:10PM

Yeah, I have a few thoughts...Rock Band FTW. Not only do they have better songs at the moment, but Harmonix has been great about actually listening to their fans. Whether it be a song pack that you want, game play features, or finally treating these games as platforms rather than SKU's, Harmonix has stepped up to the plate and actually listened to consumers. That really refreshing to see in a developer. I really hope that Universal gets really money hungry and whores out music rights to both companies, because it would really be a shame to see a great game like Rock Band with great devs and a great community be beaten because Actard can throw around more money.

tan @ Jul 11th 2008 8:02AM

rock band ftl.

its overpriced in europe, the guitar sucks, the drums make too much noise and it gets really boring to play.

i honestly don'tcare about dlc, as it stands i have nearly all of the gh3 dlc and maybe 4-5 songs of the rb dlc.

Justin @ Jul 11th 2008 10:36AM

Tan,

If you had friends to actually come play the game with you, you'd feel differently. Rock Band is the far superior offering with more support, more instruments, better songs, and a plethora of DLC.

Otherwise you're just stuck with "specialty" GH packs. Good luck with that.

frankym @ Jul 11th 2008 12:33AM

Absolutely no chance to compete against itunes...none. You need a platform to drive sales...like the ipod.

massive_98 @ Jul 11th 2008 10:07AM

I'm going to chalk this one up in the fail column...right now.

skin.bintin @ Jul 11th 2008 6:42PM

The iTunes alternative doesn't really interest me, as I don't use iTunes anyway. But, I'd much rather see 'ActiBlizzard' take over Take2 than EA.

Dan @ Jul 11th 2008 11:09AM

Yeah, because you know other large companies like Sony have tried to take on iTunes and done so well at it.

Activision is making the same damn mistakes that Microsoft did before them -- trying everything they can think of. "Let's throw all this s**t at the wall and see what sticks!"

And that's just a dumb way of doing business.