- In a marriage between two companies which made their names bringing music to television screens, Viacom-owned MTV Networks will acquire Guitar Hero developer Harmonix for $175 million in cash, the media giant announced today.
Under the terms of the buy, MTV will acquire all outstanding Harmonix stock. Harmonix will join MTV Networks'
Music and LOGO Enterprises unit. The studio's employees will retain their current positions.
The acquisition isn't MTV's first experience with Harmonix' work. Late last year, MTV began working with publisher RedOctane to incorporate the Guitar Hero franchise in MTV programming, promotions, and competitions.
"The acquisition of Harmonix will deepen MTV's connection to its audience via on-line, mobile and console music gaming, and expand the relationship with both labels and artists through the creation of games based on classic songs as well as future album releases," said MTV President Christina Norman.
Earlier this year, Activision
acquired Guitar Hero's publisher, RedOctane. With Activision in control of the Guitar Hero franchise, it is likely that MTV will indeed use Harmonix primarily to create new games tied to MTV properties. So far, however, neither company has revealed specific plans, nor is it clear whether MTV will now influence future Guitar Hero titles (Activision did not return requests for comment at the time of this writing).
Though the studio is now known for its eardrum-busting hit Guitar Hero, Harmonix first polished its chops with earlier music games Frequency (2001) and Amplitude (2003), both for the PlayStation 2. The studio worked with Konami to create
Karaoke Revolution, which challenged players to sing along with songs, as accurately as possible, via a
microphone.
MTV expects the acquisition to close by the end of the year
