Metue.com

While Kleiner Perkins is out raising a 13th fund, two gaming companies and one music discovery engine closed out April with fresh rounds of funding.

TURBINE:  Leading the April rounds was game publisher Turbine.  The Westwood, Massachusetts based game developer closed on a massive Series C to fuel their Massively Multi-Player Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) business.  According to regulatory filings, the company took an installment of $25million out of a possible $40m in the round. Granite Global Ventures led the financing and took a seat on the board to represent the Series C stockholders.  Prior investors Highland Capital, Polaris, Tudor Ventures and Columbia Capital all participated as well.

Turbine, which was founded more than a decade ago, Click to Read More

Since inching into the black, Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices division has continued a steady roll of progress on the strength of the Xbox 360 gaming platform.  Since its 2005 launch more than 19 million consoles have sold helping to make the entertainment and devices division the company’s fastest growing business unit.  To further drive growth and to spur wider international adoption, the company is cutting prices in select international markets.

Click to Read More

Nintendo dominated March gaming sales in the US retail market.  According to NPD numbers, they had the best selling console (the Wii) , the best selling portable (the DS) and even the months top selling software title.  Given that across the board strength, and following months of industry leading sales, it’s no surprise, the financials for the past few months were looking good too.  The question some are asking is: can it keep up and what’s next.

Click to Read More

If at first you don’t succeed, try again.  If that second effort doesn’t work, than take more time and go for trial number three.  There’s usually little wrong with taking the time to get a project right assuming you have the resources and luxury of time.  On the other hand, as the famous quotation goes, “real artists ship.”  If you’ve made a deadline, if you’re fighting for marketshare with competition, repeatedly missing the schedule you set yourself raises troubling questions about management and product development.

Tuesday, Sony’s gaming division put itself in the hot seat by announcing they will postpone the launch of their PS3 virtual world environment (called Sony “Home”) at least until the fall.

Click to Read More

How hot is the domestic video game market?  According to NPD’s monthly gaming round up, which was released Thursday, as hot as ever.  It fact, it may be nearing molten.

Overall, for March, total sales, including hardware, software and accessories rose 57 percent versus a year ago hitting $1.7 billion.  The number was also up month to month besting the $1.33 billion in total sales registered in February. 

Software sales, in particular, were outstanding with a monthly return of $945.6 billion, a 63 percent annual gain and well ahead of both January and February results.  Some comparative numbers shows just how staggering the number is. According to data from Home Media Retailing, combined movie rentals for the top ten movie titles in March generated approximately $270 million at the registers.  Domestic film box offices grosses for the same period were $567.2m (via Box office Mojo).  The $945.6m in video game software sales beat the two combined.

Click to Read More

It’s all systems go for the combination of Vivendi Games and Activision.  Wednesday, the companies got the go ahead from European regulators.  Officially, the European Commission will not move to block the deal for antitrust reasons.

The antitrust evaluation was conducted as part of a routine investigation following the proposed merger’s  December announcement.  There was little likelihood of a regulatory blockade but the size of the two companies, and the behemoth the merger would create, was sufficient for the European regulators to take caution to insure it would not negatively influence competition in the industry. 

Click to Read More

Recently published data from the National Venture Capital Association showed fewer venture funds have been out raising capital (57 in Q1 2008 versus 83 in 2007 and 75 and 2006) but there’s no shortage of funding.  So far this year, about the same amount of money has been raised for new funds (compared to the same period last year) despite the smaller group of fund partnerships with their hands out.  The cumulative cash raised in 2007 was also high, insuring plenty of capital waiting to be deployed.  But if that’s not evidence enough, then recent investment rounds should be; three companies, Move Networks, Visible World and Realtime Worlds have all raised more than $25m in new rounds just announced.

Click to Read More