Analysts Believe Activision Blizzard Merger is a Success

Activision Blizzard has staged its biggest event as a new company, holding an analysts day in which selected individuals were invited to talk to the leadership of the publisher to gain some insight into what it plans to do in the coming year. If the purpose of the event was to charm the people that were in attendance, then it more than succeeded, with most analysts saying that the merger is a success and that Activision Blizzard is set to break all records for revenue and profit in 2009.

Michael Pachter, who analyzes the videogaming industry for Wedbush Morgan, has called the company's release plans for 2009 “impressive”, while pointing out that the line-up of Guitar Hero games, some of the best earners for the company, was likely to double in the next year.

Colin Sebastian, who is analyst for Lazard Capital Markets also said that “We believe that Activision has a strong and visible lineup of key franchises scheduled for 2009, along with several new IP that have the potential to sell well”.

At the event, Chief Executive Officer Bobby Kotick revealed that the next Call of Duty game, the sixth in the series, would be developed by Infinity Ward, that also created Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, while saying that the game engines used in that title would power a second Activision published James Bond title which is planned for 2009 and which will not be launched alongside a Bond movie.

In the light of these announcements, Doug Creutz from Cowen Group is quoted by Gamasutra as saying that Activision Blizzard can generate more than 1 billion dollars in cash flow in 2009.

While operating semi-autonomously under the terms of the merger, Blizzard is also in a good position to have an excellent 2009, with the release of the second expansion for World of Warcrat coming up and with Starcraft II poised to be released sometime in early 2009.