Article by Damian Fasciani
WB Interactive may be up for sale, and rumours suggest that Microsoft may be interested in acquiring the development entity. This comes off the back of the news that parent organisation AT&T may be looking at selling off Warner Bros.’ games division. The Information is reporting that, just like companies Activision, EA, and Take-Two, Microsoft is interested in acquiring WB Interactive, and its many game development studios. This acquisition could cause a chain reaction with other investments to follow, like Avalanche Software, Monolith Productions, NetherRealm Studios, Rocksteady, TT Games, and various WB Games studios around the world.
Whoever buys WB Interactive won’t be buying the rights to our DC characters, like Batman, Wonder Woman etc. They will still need to negotiate the required licensing contracts. That will allow studios like Rocksteady to create DC themed games (who loved Arkham Knight?!) particular properties like Mortal Kombat will be involved in the sale of NetherRealm Studios. Microsoft may be ramping up for the acquisition as they have already invested in high profile studios like Ninja Theory, Obsidian, Double Fine, and more. This is all about beefing up their Xbox studio engineering function.
If you liked Spider Man on PS4, you can thank Insomniac. A WB Interactive purchase will add studios like NetherRealm, and potentially the license to develop DC and Harry Potter games, similar to how Insomniac has the license to develop Spider-man games for PlayStation.
AT&T is trying to manage its whopping 154 billion dollar debt, the sale of WB Interactive will net them approx. 4 billion.
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