Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) today announced an agreement with Elevation Partners to acquire VG Holding Corp. — the owner of both BioWare Corp. and Pandemic Studios. This acquisition gives EA a strong competitive position in key genres in interactive entertainment: action, adventure and role-playing games. The two studios have been recognized for creating some of the highest-quality games in the industry.

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EA will pay up to $620 million in cash to the stockholders of VG Holding Corp. and will issue up to an additional $155 million in equity to certain employees of VG Holding Corp., which will be subject to time-based or performance-based vesting criteria. EA will also assume outstanding VG Holding Corp. stock options. In addition, EA has agreed to lend VG Holding Corp. up to $35 million through the closing of the acquisition.

Duh-amn, that’s a lot of cold hard cash.

Pandemic certainly has their share of memorable titles; Dark Reign 2, Full Spectrum Warrior, Star Wars: Battlefront, and Destroy All Humans! were all worth my pimply investment. But BioWare has got be one of all-time favorite Western development houses, and knowing that’ll be taken under EA’s wing doesn’t leave me particularly jumping out of my socks in ecstasy (although I will admit the EA of today is far more favorable than the EA of yesteryear). As it is, EA has a pretty strong presence here in India - so this will only get more of BioWare’s work out in the open for those unfamiliar with their incredible lineage of role-playing games.

But don’t cry, children! At least now EA has a competent developer to handle the System Shock license.

(Source: GamesIndustry.biz)

Are you one of those people that cried like a little sissy when Microsoft and Bungie announced that Halo 3 will not be appearing for the Xbox? Well, if you are, then you’ll love BioWare. In an interview with GamesRadar, President and co-founder of BioWare, Dr. Greg Zeschuk said that if things go right, they’d ideally want to have the entire Mass Effect trilogy on the Xbox 360.

Certainly out intent is to have all three iterations or installments of Mass Effect to be on Xbox 360. That’s the goal.

Thinking a year in to the future is a big challenge these days. The law we can’t control is the length of the console cycle.

I hope that this cycle is longer than the last one. We kind of just got started last cycle and it kind of ended when our second game came out. Downloadable content could also bridge the gap by giving you new little islands of story between the big game releases.

Poor deluded fella. Do they seriously expect to wrap up the trilogy on this console before it’s 5 year lifespan is up? And besides, like Halo 3’s showing us, what better way to wrap up a cherished trilogy than not rush through the development process and end it on the console’s next iteration, complete with all the latest bells and whistles, right? Right… as long as we’re talking about the end of the trilogy, how about beginning it sometime soon, huh? Kthxbye!

BioWare aims for trilogy to start and finish on 360, if console cycle lasts that long [GamesRadar]

SAN FRANCISCO & LONDON (June 21, 2007)—SEGA© of America, Inc., SEGA® Europe, Ltd., and Canada-based developer studio BioWare® Corp. today announced a partnership to create a new video game based on the classic SEGA flagship icon Sonic The Hedgehog. The exact name of the game is undetermined, and it will ship in 2008.

“BioWare is one of the hottest names in RPG development in the world,” said Simon Jeffery, President and COO, SEGA of America, Inc. “Everyone at SEGA has huge confidence that Sonic is in the safest of hands, and that BioWare can create the ultimate handheld RPG experience for gamers of all ages.”

Somebody pinch me here. And I thought the whole Mario and Sonic At The Olympic Games item was a real funky ordeal, but holy crap does this take the motherfuckin’ chocolate cakes of them all. Sonic the Hedgehog games haven’t been so hot for the past few years, so it’s great to see a well-known developer like Bioware get their hands dirty with one of my all-time favorite franchises. And it’s gonna be a RPG! Bioware congregate role-playing games in their sleep.

God, the Furry Communities must be dancing in the rain right now at the sound of this news.

Source: Press Release from BioWare