Activision Blizzard to rival iTunes

By Robert Purchese Published 11 July, 2008

With new Guitar Hero-led online store.

Activision Blizzard has decided to use the popularity of Guitar Hero to create a "credible alternative" to iTunes.

Big boss Bobby Kotick reasoned this to be the "natural evolution" of the brand, according to the Financial Times, and pointed to the Vivendi partnership and its music catalogue as stepping stone to becoming a "successful competitor".

One elusive licence yet to be snapped up by iTunes is The Beatles back catalogue, which Activision reportedly stumped up billions of dollars to bid for.

There are lots of possibilities, Kotick explained, including global expansion and making the most of brands such as Call of Duty and World of Warcraft through "merchandising and licensing". "We haven't really capitalised on those areas," he observed, outlining a Hollywood-style model as something he is keen to pursue.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Bealsy #1 4 years ago

    Why not just sign a fucking deal with Apple, so you can link your gamer profile to iTunes, then when you buy a song on Guitar Hero you can d/l it off iTunes for free?

  • Poorandugly #2 4 years ago

    And make less money?

  • andywilkie35 #3 4 years ago

    i've used itunes for years and its flawless. no chance i'll use this shit

  • flaming.carrot #4 4 years ago

    This sounds toss. Stick to the games, I don't want Call Of Duty merchandise thanks.

  • Milbe #5 4 years ago

    everyone is making it's own version of everything. it must be rather difficult to come up with new brand names by now.

  • Stu #6 4 years ago

    This will never, ever work.

  • Eraysor #7 4 years ago

    I don't have an iPod so it'll be interesting to see how this turns out.

  • rhubarbandcustard #8 4 years ago

    Very interesting, and kudo's for taking on those fuckers Apple. That company epitomizes everything that I hate about big businesses. They are fricking evil. And iTunes is shit.

  • LazyDan #9 4 years ago

    This will not rival iTunes.

    Similarly, iPod games will not rival the PSP and DS. This cross market battling is weird.

  • johnnybrn #10 4 years ago

    Flawless you say? 79p for a 128kb track laden with DRM. That sucks big time.

    The more competition the better I say
    Edited by 1 at 11/07/08 @ 14:03

  • Wobbler #11 4 years ago

    > 79p for a 128kb track laden with DRM. That sucks big time.
    Or 79p for a 256kb track without DRM, if you get a "iTunes Plus" song

    And "Laden" is a bit harsh; it's better than secure Windows media files.

    But yeah -- some competition is good. This isn't it, however. I want the Amazon MP3 store to come to the UK, really.

  • mattniche #12 4 years ago

    I detest iTunes. It's a bloated load of cock.

    After a recent HD failure I lost the few things I had purchased from it and found there is no way to automatically download them again. I had to email Apple and got a patronising email back along the lines of " well, we will let you get them this time, but not again. You really should back everything up ". I'm well aware that I should back things up, but if I wanted this stuff on CD / DVD that's how I would of purchased them. It defeats the point of getting them digitally if I can't download them again. And backing up to a HD isn't flawless as they can and will fail.

    /rant over.

  • kestral #13 4 years ago

    @Wobbler later this year http://is.gd/R2J-

  • johnnybrn #14 4 years ago

    mattniche,

    I know how you feel as recently got a new computer and transferred my library from the old to new computer. Luckily I have only bought a handful of itunes songs.

    But when doing so it said something like - 'Only 3 more transfers allowed'. Therefore can I only transfer songs time more times before they are locked for good?

    Fuckers!

    Thats why I use anythiing but itunes if I can

  • TheBoyChris #15 4 years ago

    What's the fucking deal with the Beatles? Billions of dollars? I mean, seriously... who gives a shit to the tune of a few billion dollars?

  • Vice.Destroyer #16 4 years ago

    @ Theboychris
    +1

    I have never understood beatlemania. Surely a true beatle fan will also be the kind to not listen to music on an MP3 player?

  • gremly #17 4 years ago

    And so..The war for World Domination begins.

    Soon we will all have to bow down to our Blizzard masters! :p

  • illusiondance #18 4 years ago

    ouch, wuh?
    I loath the idea of buying anything through apple but also find the idea of a games company hawking non-OST digital music pretty uncomfortable.... who the fuck decided activison is a an authority on music? that's some serious egotism is action.
    (and a fair share of marketing wanks pushing the cross-over no doubt)

    as long as they keep making these fancy cassette things im sorted...

  • Dizzy #19 4 years ago

    >Flawless you say? 79p for a 128kb track laden with DRM. That sucks big time.

    DoubleTwist is your friend ;)

    http://www.doubletwist.co m

  • johnnybrn #20 4 years ago

    Dizzy,

    thats awesome thanks

  • clockworkzombie #21 4 years ago

    @johnnybrn
    You can reset the number of transfers back to five whenever you like. You will then need to enter your itunes password again before they will play, but only the first time.

    @mattniche
    I think you are being inconsistent. First of all you complain about losing data from a hard drive failure then continue complaining about being advised to backup.

    If you continue to purchase or create digital media and you do not have a backup please do not complain about a hard drive crash later thanks.

    An external USB drive is quite cheap and the effort to maintain a backup of anything you want to keep is trivial compared to any effort required to recover data after a crash.

    edited for spelling
    Edited by 1 at 11/07/08 @ 22:23

  • mattniche #22 4 years ago

    @ clockworkzombie

    I think my initial post was unclear.

    Yes, I complained that I had lost data from a HD failure. I have optical back-ups of vital system files as I am well aware of the need for this. I don't trust a HD for long term storage for the very reason in my initial post. It would be impractical and a waste for me to burn a CD / DVD or take up space on a pen driive everytime I wanted to back-up the odd thing from iTunes.

    If I wanted to download something and put it striaght on a CD / DVD, I would just go and buy it on that format and save messing about.

    Digital should be about convenience, and I consider being able to download paid for items again part of that. Other similar services I use all offer this, so why not Apple?

  • mattniche #23 4 years ago

    Coo, I can't remember writing that.

  • AOFanboi #24 4 years ago

    <em>And make less money?</em>

    Rather, spend less money.

  • Nithron #25 4 years ago

    Yeah, iTunes is a bit wank. The download-once restriction also applies to games; I bought a couple, they mysteriously disappeared from my iPod just because ipods are fairly glitchy, and then I couldn't get them back. Also, can't play anything you buy from there in anything other than iTunes. I actually had to rip the DRM off the tracks that i'd actually bought, just so i didn't have to use Apple's shitty software.

    DRM FTL.

  • clockworkzombie #26 4 years ago

    @mattniche
    If it is important then multiple backups are a necessity. I trust external drives more than I trust backups to optical drives, for anything important I backup to HD and burn to disc.

    When using optical media to back up make sure you have two copies and keep them in a dark cupboard as light will degrade them.

    I do not trust digital delivery providers to allow access to my purchased files after a year or so. All the music I purchase through iTunes is exported to CD to strip the DRM then re-imported and backed up to my external drive.