After all, it seems as if industry leaders Activision Inc. and Electronic Arts Inc. have consolidated most of the better known players. Activision is amidst a merger with Vivendi SA's game unit, Blizzard, and EA is attempting to acquire Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., a company about the same size as THQ. Aside from THQ and Take-Two, other publicly traded midtier publishers include Ubisoft Entertainment SA and Midway Games Inc. However, Ubisoft is an unlikely partner because EA owns a large stake, and therefore is likely to vote against a dilutive deal. Midway is in a similar circumstance where Sumner Redstone owns most of its shares. Additionally, Japanese publishers are unlikely partners for THQ, having rarely ventured into mergers with Western publishers.
One takeover target often overlooked is privately owned ZeniMax Media Inc., which last year raised $300 million from Providence Equity Partners Inc. After all, Reuters notes THQ's interest in building a role-playing game franchise, and ZeniMax's Bethesda Softworks unit produces the highly acclaimed "Elder Scrolls" series.
Essentially, THQ has no peer to partner with, but there are a myriad of privately held developers even smaller than ZeniMax that THQ could pluck. Of course, purchasing small developers would just be more of the same for THQ, which earlier in the week bought Elephant Entertainment, a developer of online casual games, for an undisclosed sum. - Matthew Wurtzel
See story from Reuters
See story about ZeniMax from TheDeal.com
See story about Activision deal from TheDeal.com
See story about EA-Take-Two deal from TheDeal.com
See Dealwatch: Take-Two
THQ Inc. is looking at buying other video game developers, but the publisher of Disney and WWE games can grow without making acquisitions, CEO Brian Farrell told Reuters. Perhaps Farrell hedged his comments about not needing an acquisition because there aren't many left in the industry.
