World of Warcraft Heading to Consoles? (ATVI, MSFT, SNE, GME)

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jan 11, 10:46AM EST

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Vivendi’s Blizzard could have a new trick up its sleeve in MMORPG (massively multi-player online role playing games) besides its pending merger. There is a report on the MMORPG Blog noting a "rumor" that the crack-like addictive World of Warcraft may actually be coming to video game consoles rather than solely being available on PC’s. Normally we might not address this one, but on the heels of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and having been a longstanding reader of this site it has broken some development issues in the past.

If this occurs, there may be a few million more WoW addicts out there. And they’ll be paying a monthly fee for it too. There are some discrepancies here and there are no assurances this will occur for the already existing game.

Activision (NYSE:ATVI) would also stand to benefit here as its shareholders will own a part of the combined Blizzard-Activision. WoW is one of the few ongoing games in the MMORPG that has had this long of a run with the continued fervor and enthusiasm.

What is probably in the works is that the natural evolution of this MMORPG trend is one that is leaving millions of gamers out of the action (and out of the MMORPG revenue stream). Many gamers, including your truly, play video games via their consoles to escape the confines of being at the PC. This is a natural progression even if it is not WoW that makes it to consoles. Future editions could make the jump, and many others will in the future. Most online sessions on console sessions tend to involve a handful or two of players rather than Millions of users. We think this is just the natural progression whether the current versions of WoW or future versions make it or not.

When you combine this with a soon to be independent Bungie Studios out of Microsoft (still pending status) (NASDAQ:MSFT), it looks like the video game sector will have some excitement this year even without any new console system releases this year or next. In theory this could lead to more Xbox 360 console sales, and it likely wouldn’t be bad for Sony’s (NYSE: SNE) PS3 either.

GameStop (NYSE: GME) shares are trading lower despite raised guidance as a weak consumer may still affect some video game spending. Shares of Activision are down roughly 1% today too.

Jon C. Ogg
January 11, 2008

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.