Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Rock Band Notes

Most of you have probably already seen this, but Harmonix was sold to an investment firm named Columbus Nova last week. Here's an excerpt from the Game|Life report:
...After four years under the auspices of Viacom, Harmonix is independent again.

Viacom has sold the Rock Band creator to an investment firm called Columbus Nova, it said Thursday. The New York-based Columbus Nova manages over $10 billion in assets worldwide, using what it calls “a value-oriented, long-term view to investing.” Harmonix will now be owned by Harmonix-SBE Holdings LLC, an affiliate company.

“We’re excited for Harmonix to return to its roots as a privately held and independent studio,” said Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos in an emailed statement.

I haven't seen anyone comment on what this means, and I think that's because no one can successfully wrap their arms around the implications. A few weeks ago, Microsoft, EA, and Activision were supposedly in the bidding mix, so I don't think anyone saw this coming.

I do think that Viacom will have to account for the sale in their next earnings statement (which should be released in early February), so some of the fog may dissipate then. I'm guessing that what Viacom received for Harmonix is a metric ton less than what they paid for it, though.

In far more interesting news, someone managed to buy a Fender Squier over two months early (thanks to the Qt3 forums, where I saw a post about it). He's posting impressions in the the thread, and they're quite detailed. It makes me look forward to getting my own Squier--in the distant future, because March is the distant future for someone with poor impulse control.

In other notes about poor impulse control, I'm still waiting for the MIDI adapater that would let me use my drum kit to play the game. I originally thought that offloading all kinds of peripheral crap to Mad Catz was a great move by Harmonix, but what hasn't been so great is that almost two months after shipping the game, the 360 adapter still isn't available (although Wii and PS3 adapters seem to be trickling into stores).

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