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Vodafone to buy Germany's biggest cable operator for $10.1 billion
Every summer, the world's second biggest mobile provider likes to splash out on a broadband company to bolster its cellular offerings. Last year, for instance, Vodafone snapped up Cable & Wireless' British fiber-optic network for $1.6 billion -- but that's a bargain compared to the $10.1 billion it's just sealed for Germany's largest cable company, Kabel Deutschland. Unlike last year's deal, which concentrated on infrastructure, this move will see Vodafone entering the triple-play market, offering mobile, fixed-line and TV services. Anyone got a German dictionary to hand? We want to look up what "technofreaks" translates to.
WSJ: Clearwire to endorse Dish's offer, push back vote on Sprint deal (updated)
Well, it looks like Sprint's letter to Clearwire Corp. didn't adequately trash Dish Network. According to The Wall Street Journal, a special committee of Clearwire's board will push back a shareholder vote on Sprint's deal this Thursday and recommend that the full board endorse Dish's buyout proposal. Needless to say, that would put a sizable wrench in Sprint's plans to fully acquire the spectrum provider. The carrier already owns nearly half of Clearwire, and if Dish gets its way, it will become a major minority shareholder in the company. Whatever happens next, likely won't end the drawn-out bidding war, though; Sprint has already claimed that Dish's offer can't legally be accepted without its consent. As always, stay tuned. Update: Dish just formally announced the extension of its tender offer to Clearwire, pushing back the original June 28th date to July 2nd. Skip past the break for the full release.
The Daily Grind: Would you re-buy a game for bonuses?
So Final Fantasy XIV has announced its relaunch date, along with another collector's edition for people to buy. I'd like to point out here that I still have the original collector's edition sitting on a shelf in my office, and it has been stated clearly that all of the digital gewgaws for the collector's edition will be awarded to people with the old version. Yet I still have to fight the urge to buy another CE anyway, because there's an art book and other physical trinkets. MMOs especially are games that you should never need to re-purchase. But sometimes you can find a game packaging something nice in with another purchase, and it almost becomes worth it to have another copy despite not needing a second account. So would you re-buy a game for new bonuses, either in-game or just bonus trinkets? Or does the very idea seem ridiculous to you? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Yahoo rumors ahead of Monday's event include $1.1 billion Tumblr buy, Flickr updates
Earlier today, Yahoo sent press invites to a "product-related" event in New York City Monday afternoon and there are already two separate rumors about the company's plans. The first, from Bloomberg, concerns the event specifically and cites a "person familiar with the matter" reporting we'll hear about new updates for Yahoo's once-mighty Flickr photo service. The second is from AllThingsD which has upgraded rumors of a Tumblr purchase from possible to possibly imminent, saying the company's board will meet Sunday to decide whether it will make a $1.1 billion all-cash offer for the site. Since new CEO Marissa Mayer took over Yahoo has made a number of acquisitions with a focus on improving its homepage, content and app offerings including Flickr. That announcement is also penciled in for the 20th, but whatever actually goes down you can be sure we'll have the details as they're unveiled around 4PM ET.
Shadow of the Eternals uses assets purchased from Silicon Knights
A bit of that old Silicon Knights black magic lives on in Shadow of the Eternals, the "spiritual successor" to Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem from Precursor Games. Art assets originally created by Silicon Knights employees have been bought, paid for and implemented into this new project. "We did purchase some art assets from Silicon Knights," Precursor Games CEO Paul Caporicci told Wired. "We were very happy to be able to put those assets created by the talented past employees to use." It was reported last October that as much as 40 percent of Silicon Knights had been working on a sequel to Eternal Darkness, which may explain the existence of said art assets. Shadow of the Eternals is being built in CryEngine 3, Caporicci added – an important distinction to make considering the major issues Silicon Knights suffered after using Unreal Engine 3 and subsequently employing its own game engine. Though Nintendo owns the rights to Eternal Darkness and has patented the game's sanity mechanics, Caporicci said similar gameplay ideas can be safely implemented without breaking the law.
Guild Wars 2 is on sale until February 25th
Hey, you. Yes, you, the person reading this post right now. You want some Guild Wars 2? You want to get in cheap? I know a guy who knows a guy who can get it for you really cheap, man. Specifically, the guy in question is the guy who runs the official store on the game's website, which is offering the game for about 30% until February 25th. So it may actually be multiple guys or girls, since one would imagine ArenaNet has several people working on the store page. Prospective players or current players who dearly want another copy of the game can buy the standard edition for $39.99 or the Digital Deluxe edition for $54.99. No word on exactly when the sale will end on the 25th, but we'd recommend just going ahead and picking up the game now if it's on your agenda. It's not going to be any cheaper tomorrow.
Former Color employee talks about Apple's Lala deal
Aubrey Johnson is a former employee of Color, the startup recently acquired by Apple and founded by Bill Nguyen, who sold another company to Apple called Lala. Over on his personal blog, Johnson has put up a post that walks right through the story of how Apple picked up Lala, from the reasoning behind the buy to how the purchase was actually negotiated. The whole process sounds very exciting -- Nguyen's company (which had nailed down a lot of search results but was flagging in profitability at that point) got a buyout offer from Nokia that even Nguyen wasn't impressed with. But he successfully sold that offer up the line to Google, and then got Apple interested, essentially pitting Apple and Google against each other for this little company that threatened to be the musical lynchpin of either service. Finally, Nguyen sat down with Steve Jobs and other Apple higher-ups, Jobs passed a number across the table, and Nguyen nodded -- and that was it. The company sold for $80 million with about that much more in bonuses for the remaining employees. And as Johnson points out, a lot of those employees then went on to work with Nguyen again at Color, and Apple bought them again. At a price, Johnson says, that was so nice (given these employees' talent and experience) it was worth it twice anyway. That's how you do business like Apple: Pay for what you need whatever it costs, and be glad you're building the best company around. [via MacRumors]
Age of Wushu removes Elite benefits unexpectedly
So, enjoying Age of Wushu? Enough to purchase the game's Elite package with all its attendant benefits before launch? That's great, but if you bought it on the premise of having a permanent mount, you're going to be sadly disappointed. Snail Games USA has announced that the unlimited mount previously announced for purchasers has been removed, replaced by an increased quantity of gold and a few temporary mounts. While it's an understandable balance concern, it's also somewhat upsetting for players who have already purchased the package partly on this basis. This comes in the wake of another announcement by the company clarifying that Elite/Deluxe edition rewards are only given to the first character you create. Deleting and remaking your character will not result in your rewards being resent. This has further angered several players, as this statement was not made until after many players had begun recreating characters without prior knowledge of this policy. The post announcing that these items are one-time-only explains the philosophy behind it, and encourages all players to do ample research before creating a first character for this exact reason. [Thanks to Adam for the tip!]
Foxconn buys 9 percent stake in GoPro for $200 million
Hon Hai Precision, better known as Foxconn, is already the world's largest electronics manufacturer. Chances are if you've got a laptop, console or smartphone it was assembled in one of the company's many Chinese factories. The giant has also gotten quite cozy with Sharp, with an eye towards investing directly in the LCD market, though no deal has been made official. Now the company is dipping its toes in the camera business, by purchasing an 8.88-percent stake in GoPro for $200 million. GoPro is best known for its rugged shooters used by shows like MythBusters, oh, and the Engadget Show! There's not many details to report at the moment but, if you're curious, there's PR awaiting you after the break.
Sprint confirms it's buying the rest of Clearwire for $2.2 billion
Sprint has just announced that it has entered into a "definitive agreement" to buy the 50 percent stake of Clearwire it doesn't already own. The transaction, worth $2.2 billion, is $100 million higher than the original offer House Hesse had made, once rumors of the deal had pushed Clearwire's share price up. While the deal is contingent upon the legal nuts-and-bolts of the Sprint-Softbank merger going through, the Japanese company has already given its blessing to the deal. Big Yellow has also garnered support from Clearwire's big-ticket minority shareholders, including Comcast, Intel and BrightHouse Networks. As part of the deal, Sprint will take on Clearwire's $5.5 billion in debt and licensing obligations, as well as coughing up a further $800 million in investment for the constantly-ailing network provider. If it meets regulatory approval, then the deal will complete in 2013, and never again will Dan Hesse have to have that dream nightmare about LightSquared.
Disney acquires Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion, LucasArts included
Disney has just announced its purchase of Lucasfilm Limited, the umbrella corporation responsible for all things Star Wars, Indiana Jones and pretty much anything else George Lucas has ever had his hand in. The purchase will set ol' Walt back $4.05 billion.Industrial Light & Magic, Skywalker Sound and LucasArts are all included in the purchase price, meaning that Disney has not only found a way to profit from the production of movies that it isn't making, but also how to get Jar-Jar Binks into a Kingdom Hearts game.The company also announced that Star Wars 7 exists and is aiming for a 2015 release date, which makes this the most insane thing ever. Lucasfilm co-chairman Kathleen Kennedy will become president of Lucasfilm under Disney, and will also act as executive producer on "new Star Wars feature films, with George Lucas serving as creative consultant."
Lauder's purchase of OnLive totaled just $4.8 million
When venture capitalist group Lauder Partners, LLC purchased and reformed OnLive back in August, it did so for $4.8 million, according to a letter to OnLive's creditors obtained by Polygon and the San Jose Mercury News. The company's blue-light special asking price was due in part to its $18.7 million in debt, in addition to the fact that the last of its available cash had already been allocated to fulfill payroll obligations.Granted, $4.8 million is still more money than we'll ever see in our entire lives, but it seems a bit paltry when compared with Sony's $380 million acquisition of Gaikai. Under the circumstances, however, this was as good as it was going to get for OnLive."Had the sale to the buyer not taken place, the assignee would have been left with inadequate capital to fund the significant costs to preserve and market OnLive's patents and other intellectual property, thus greatly reducing expected recoveries essentially to those of a forced piecemeal auction," says Insolvency Services Group CEO Joel Weinberg in the letter to OnLive's creditors.OnLive's creditors will receive around $0.26 for every dollar originally owed, according to the letter.
Google Play Music and Movies purchasing reaches Google TV, patches a media strategy hole
It's been one of the more conspicuous omissions in the media hub space: despite Google Play being the cornerstone of Google's content strategy, you couldn't truly use the company's music or movie services through Google TV without depending on content you'd already paid for elsewhere. As of a new upgrade, the ecosystem has come full circle. Viewers with Google TV boxes can at last buy or rent directly from Google Play Movies and Google Play Music, and the content will be indexed in the TV & Movies section alongside third-party video services and traditional TV. The upgrade also helps Google's TV front end play catch-up with its mobile counterpart by adding automatic app updates and subscriptions. While device owners may have to wait a few weeks as the upgrade rolls out, the addition signals a big step forward for a platform that has normally leaned heavily on others for help.
Toys R Us launches family-friendly internet movie service, plans Tabeo access, HD video and more
Like Amazon, Best Buy and Barnes & Noble before it, Toys R Us is following the path of being a retailer distributing its own branded hardware (Tabeo, Nabi) with an accompanying app store, and then supplementing those offerings with a digital media service. ToysrusMovies.com is a Rovi-powered digital storefront currently available to PCs, Macs and other Flash compatible devices, with an app planned for the Tabeo soon, as well as Blu-ray players, HDTVs and other mobile devices including iOS and Android. The content consists of "more than 4,000" titles from big names like Disney, Fox, NBCUniversal and more, available for 24-hour rental starting at $2.99, and $5.99 for download or streaming. Right out of the gate its scored an early release of Madagascar 3 two weeks before the disc release, currently a $16 purchase with "unlimited" streaming to activated devices, with downloads to up to 5 devices. Now of course, all it needs is some compatible devices, but building an ecosystem is a process, and may be key to separating Toys R Us' offerings from the competition. Check out more details in the press release after the break or at the site.
Google Play hits 25 billion app downloads, holds celebratory yard sale with $0.25 games
Google Play crossed a rather significant milestone this morning: something to the tune of 25 billion app downloads. While the accomplishment is weighty enough on its own -- especially given that the store also offers books, music and movies, which aren't included in this tally -- Google is celebrating in symbolic style with a number of apps and games for sale at just $0.25 over the next five days. Among the mix of discounted titles, you'll find publishers such as Gameloft, Electronic Arts, Rovio, Runtastic and Full Fat. Not to stop there, shoppers will also discover a curated collection of 25 must-own movies, 25 banned books, 25 albums that changed the world and 25 top-selling magazines. With today's announcement, it was revealed that 675,000 apps and games now live in Google Play -- a healthy increase when compared to 600,000 titles and 20 billion installs just three months ago. As you might expect, Apple still claims the largest selection with 700,000 titles in its App Store, although with such a thin separation between the two, we may see Google Play eclipse its rival in short order.
Dice Holdings buys Slashdot, Freecode and SourceForge for $20 million
Dice Holdings, the unimaginatively named owner of technology jobs site Dice.com has purchased Geeknet's media business for a cool $20 million. The deal hands over control of the world-famous Slashdot, Freecode and SourceForge to the careers company, commencing the careers site's push into tech content. It leaves Geeknet with one remaining property, ThinkGeek, which will now be getting all of that company's attention -- hopefully to produce products that are even more lust inducing than Cave Johnson's portrait.
iRobot buys rival Evolution Robotics for $74 million to expand hard-floor cleaning tech
iRobot celebrated Roomba's 10th birthday quietly teeing up a $74 million acquisition of rival Evolution Robotics Inc. The Pasadena-based company produces the Mint, a hard-floor 'bot that uses ordinary Swiffer pads to wet-wipe your wooden decks clean -- and comes with the more sophisticated "Northstar" GPS-style positioning tech. As part of the deal, Evolution CEO Paolo Pirjanian will become iRobot's new CTO and the Mint and Mint Plus will be folded into the company's stable of Roomba cleaners -- with the deal expected to be fully approved by the fourth quarter of the year.
ArenaNet resumes digital sales of Guild Wars 2
A little over a week ago, ArenaNet brought a temporary halt to first-party digital sales of Guild Wars 2. At the time, the message was this: "Ensuring the best possible play experience for our fans is our highest priority. We've said before that we would be willing to temporarily disable first-party digital sales if we felt our high player concurrency may compromise player experiences. We have now reached that point." It seems like we may be beyond that point now, however. While there's no official statement from ArenaNet yet, the digital purchase page for Guild Wars 2 appears to be up and running once again. On the same page, players are being prompted to include BradyGames' official Guild Wars 2 digital strategy guide ($14.99) and advised to "make the most of [their] time in Tyria with this comprehensive guide packed with tips and tactics, crucial info, and detailed analysis."
Fox to sell Digital HD movies three weeks ahead of discs or VOD, Prometheus is first (Update: via Amazon, iTunes, Xbox, Vudu etc.)
According to the New York Times, Fox is about to try another tactic to enhance sales of its movies, by offering downloadable UltraViolet (Update: and many other formats, see below.) copies for sale a full three weeks ahead of their release on Blu-ray / DVD or for video on-demand rental. The first movie to get the treatment will be Ridley Scott's Prometheus later this month, and Fox is pricing the copies at about $15, down from the $20 of previous releases. Other flicks on deck for the early digital sale treatment are Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, The Watch and Ice Age: Continental Drift. Fox is apparently calling the setup Digital HD, or DHD, as it rolls out in 50 different countries all at once, and opted to offer the flicks in high definition instead of issuing cheaper standard def versions to "put its best foot forward". Last year's $30 premium VOD rental pilot was another attempt to experiment with release windows that Fox participated in, but DHD's more reasonable pricing makes it an interesting option. Of course, the main trick will be getting customers to opt for an UltraViolet format which is still not supported by Apple and Amazon's movie stores, but dangling early access to mainstream movies could be just the bait required. Update: We talked to Fox and confirmed that the DHD initiative is not limited to only Ultraviolet. According to the studio when this kicks off September 18th, it will make more than 600 films available across stores including Amazon, CinemaNow, iTunes, PlayStation, VUDU and Xbox. Prometheus is also Fox's first UV title and its first new release under the DHD program, but if you prefer your digital movies in another format, it looks like you'll be able to get them. Update 2: The Fox Home Entertainment Twitter account posted a link to the iTunes preorder which is already live, we're not seeing it in the other stores we've checked yet but it will likely show up in those eventually.
Google patents buyer-specific price drops for follow-up sales, can tell if you're a cheapskate
Ever been tempted to rent a movie again, but thought the price was just a little too dear? Google may soon be willing to haggle a deal. One of its newly-granted patents could automatically lower the price of repurchase-friendly content, such as a Google Play Movies rental, depending on how likely you are to pull the trigger. Its algorithm weighs your personal tastes and repurchasing habits against those of your peers: if the code senses you'll be relatively stingy, you'll get a better discount. The analysis could even factor in the nature of the content itself. A thoughtful movie, ownership of the soundtrack or just a lot of related searches could lead to a repurchase at the usual price, while a simple action flick with no previous interest may bring the discount into effect. We don't know if Google will offer these extra-personal discounts to the public at any point in the future, but if you suddenly notice a lot of follow-up bargains in Google Play, you'll know how they came to be.
