The official figure of Harmonix’s sale is in, and it was revealed today that the critically acclaimed developer of some of the most groundbreaking games in the rhythm genre was sold for…(drum roll)…$50. You read that right, Viacom apparently sold the developer to Columbus Nova for $49.99, about nine bucks more than an Xbox 360 copy of Rock Band 3 goes for on Amazon.com right now.
However, there are a number of hidden costs that Columbus Nova will have to deal with now that the investment firm owns the developer, including their “expensive music rights fees, and responsibility for lots of unsold games and equipment sitting on warehouse shelves.” Additionally, the sale was structured so that Viacom wouldn’t make out so poorly, as they are set to net around $150 million in tax benefits from the sale (they originally bought Harmonix for $175 million in 2006).
So, what do you guy think of this deal? Did Columbus Nova make the right move in picking up the developer, or will this bite them in the ass?
via IGN
The music genre is dead. Columbus will discover a new continent of debts. Nuff said…
It isn’t as if Harmonix can only make Rock Band and if Colombus Nova has some intelligent people they’ll realize it is necessary to steer Harmonix down a different path. Peripheral based music games just aren’t selling like they used to and if a copy does leave the shelf it is usually the stand alone disc because the consumers that are buying the game already have the peripherals. Harmonix can continue to create music based games but something unique and attractive needs to be added to reinvigorate consumer interest. Only time will tell if Colombus Nova made a good decision but of course it does have an insane amount of potential to bite them in the ass later.
I’m just sitting here wondering how much money Harmonix actually made for Viacom over the years, and now another 150mil in tax breaks? Can anyone say golden parachute? Plus what Jesuno said . . .
Props to Jesuno, very well said mate!
Shit tis story is confusing to me . I have follod ervy post abote this thing and i still dount get every thing
You know it will be hard for them to bite it because they hardly spent any money to get them in the first place. Now if they continue to make music rhythm games which i suspect they will then it could come back to haunt them. The reason being is that the music genre is dead mostly due to Activision flooding the market with so many iterations of guitar hero that it made this genre dry up and die pretty quickly. But don’t get me wrong they made a lot of cash before it hits its decent.
I smell the ultimate in TAX WRITEOFF.