MTV Games Staffs Up For The Beatles: Rock Band—And Possible Acquisitions
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Just a few months after rival Activision brought in Yahoo vet Dan Rosensweig to head up its Guitar Hero division, comes news that MTV Games has added two new senior execs to its roster to prep for the launch of The Beatles: Rock Band. THQ’s former EVP of publishing Scott Guthrie will be the new EVP and GM; David Cox, former senior director of sales and merchandising at Sony Computer Entertainment America, will serve as VP of sales. Their primary goal will be to manage the Rock Band business, but Guthrie tells THR that MTV Games (through parent company Viacom) is in prime position to scoop up new games, game concepts, and possibly even smaller studios from the “fire sales going on everywhere” in the industry.
SEE ALSO: Industry Moves: Dan Rosensweig Lands At Activision; Will Head Up Guitar Hero Franchise
Currently, Rock Band is the only title that MTV Games has in stores (and online); there’s the nearly two-year-old partnership with Jerry Bruckheimer for a game incubation studio, but details on what’s under development have been nonexistent. (The studio, Jerry Bruckheimer Games, did just bring in Halo 3 producer Jim Veevaert and Ubisoft’s Jay Cohen—so there must be some new IP coming down the pike).
But Van Toffler, president of MTV Networks (NYSE: VIA) Music/Films/Logo Group told THR that Guthrie, Cox and the rest of the MTV Games team would have more than just Rock Band and Bruckheimer’s games to work on: the division could take on game-publishing duties for sister properties like Nickelodeon (since they’re currently using third-party publishers to put out games for franchises like SpongeBob), or to create new music-centric titles with “really breakthrough artists” that are new to the gaming industry.
Posted In: Entertainment, Games, Industry Moves, Money, M&A & Venture Capital, Mergers & Acquisitions, Companies, Viacom, MTV, rock band, van toffler
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