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After pulling out of the ESA and holding its own media event last year, Activision-Blizzard is headed back to E3, according to the current list of exhibitors for the 2009 event on the official E3 website.

Activision-Blizzard isn't rejoining the ESA, but it seems that they've managed to come to terms with the organization after an abrupt exit last year over reported displeasure with CEO Mike Gallagher.

Also, Joystiq is reporting that NCsoft will once again miss the event.

"While NCsoft has been a member of the ESA in the past, we are not currently an ESA member and do not expect to attend E3 this year. We will continue to evaluate how E3 fits into NCsoft's plans each year," a representative told the gaming blog.

The show will be held from June 2-4, so stay tuned for future announcements from the ESA and exhibitors. Hit the jump for a list of companies expected to attend.

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Turns out that the Wii won't be getting this week's Guitar Hero World Tour Jimi Hendrix pack after all, as a representative from Activision Blizzard has confirmed to MTV's Multiplayer Blog that the console won't be getting the download pack.

“Due to technical or licensing restrictions, the DLC offerings will not be the same for every console platform,” the representative told Multiplayer's Patrick Klepek. “For example, certain artists prefer to keep the integrity of the track pack rather than releasing singles and the Wii’s infrastructure only allows us the ability to release single songs as DLC.”

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It was only a matter of time until Blizzard Entertainment, or should I say Activision Blizzard, reached the 10 million subscriber mark in the popular online role playing game, World of Wacraft. The breakdown comes in like this: 2+ million subscribers in Europe, more than 2.5+ million in North America, and approximately 5.5+ million in Asia.

World of Warcraft's Subscriber Definition
World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access.

Any of you still playing it? According to the numbers, it looks like a bunch still are.

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Following the news of the Activision Blizzard merger, the company has confirmed that, in fact, Call of Duty 5 and Guitar Hero IV are both in development. There are no other details for these upcoming titles at this time.

In addition, other titles in the works include a new James Bond, Tony Hawk, new Dreamworks and Marvel titles and a racing title from Bizarre Creations.

Those who wish to visit the official site can do so here.

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Activision and Vivendi Game have both announced today that they will be merging to form a new company, Activision Blizzard.

Activision is one of the largest publishers of video games, owning the Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, and Tony Hawk licenses. Vivendi Gamess games is one of the smaller, less awesome publishers but owned by Vivendi Universal, a gigantic media company. Vivendi Games owns Blizzard, developer and creator of such cash-factories as World of Warcraft, Warcraft, Starcraft, and has nothing to do with Witchcraft. Vivendi Games also currently owns the rights to not-as-good-as-they-used-to-be Crash Bandicoot and Spyro.

After looking over the press release (linked in PDF format), it appears that this isn't exactly a straight merger.

Activision isn't changing its name to Activision Blizzard.
Quoth the press release: "Under the terms of the agreement, Vivendi Games will be merged with a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision."

Activision Blizzard will be a new company, owned by Activision. They'll be spending $4 billion to buy up 145.6 million of their own shares, using $1.7 billion that Vivendi Games brings to the table from its own shares.

If I've decoded this correctly, I'd say that Activision is actually absorbing Vivendi, and mainly to obtain ownership of Blizzard. Now, instead of Blizzard games being published by Vivendi, they'll be published by "Activision Blizzard." Vivendi Games will probably disappear, though the name and property will be owned by Activision (not by Vivendi Universal, interestingly)

I suppose it's not technically a buyout, if anything I'd say the situation was that Vivendi running out of money but they had the valuable Blizzard crew, so they worked it out so Activision could acquire Blizzard by first taking over Vivendi Games. Business is confusing. Were this a Japanese business transaction, however, it would be infinitely more confusing.

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