This is very, very disturbing news.

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This is all bad imho. I really do not want to see MSFT forcing Blizzard to move their focus towards the console just to help the XBOX.

The rumors continue to fly about a potential MS purchase of the Vivendi gaming division, which includes Blizzard. Emails about the articles on SlashDot and this one on Megagames are appearing in our inboxes every five minutes. It seems that Microsoft is at least negotiating the purchase, but so is or has every other big gaming company, and Vivendi is looking to sell, if the price is right. MS certainly has deep enough pockets, but all the news is just speculation thus far.

I wish Blizzard could just "buy itself" and not have to languish under the rotten influence of just about ANY "publisher/producer."

MSFT makes a lot of good PC games, so that isn't my concern. I just do not like the way they want to buy every good game company up and force them to switch to making XBOX games.

This is part of MSFT's strategy to have the XBOX2 be this massive all encompassing set-top box that does everything: games, movies, satellite tv, PVR technology (TiVO), music, home security, everything!