Activision Blizzard Inc.’s CEO said on Thursday, it is “business as usual” for now while it explores expansion and acquisition opportunities after closing a deal last week to buy back most of Vivendi’s stake, the parent company, for more than $8 billion.
CEO Bobby Kotick will not give up on his plans for the top video games publisher. It reported a 42 percent drop in the company’s second quarter earnings, showing broad contraction in the video games industry and a schedule for the release of lighter games.
Kotick said in an interview with Reuters, "It makes it a lot easier to manage the business when you have one independent view and you don't have to consider the issues of the majority shareholder. The single biggest change now is that we will have an undistracted focus on all of the opportunities and challenges in our business."
Activision Blizzard and an investor group led by Kotick and co-chairman Brian Kelly agreed to buy a portion of the majority stake held by France's Vivendi that would allow the company to become independent.
The company affirmed preliminary results that had been declared last Thursday in conjunction with the deal.
Since 2012, sales of console games and devices have diminished from month to month, mainly because of aging console devices and gamers drifting to cheap game offerings on mobile devices.
The industry is hoping for resurgent revenue on new-generation video game consoles from Microsoft Corp. and Sony Corp., which will go on sale this year-end holiday season.
Activision has cautioned that it anticipates to have elevated marketing costs in the second-half and a tough holiday quarter because of heavy rivalry and ambiguity around the demand for new video game consoles.
Analysts expect that because of the rivalry with Smartphone and tablets, sales this console cycle will minimize in contrast to sales of last-generation consoles Wii.
