sci posts

They promised they would a few months ago and apparently they have gone ahead and done it. We are talking, of course, about UK based SCi who said back in September they would apply to change their name officially to Eidos, the publisher they bought a few years back. Gamesindustry.biz reports that SCi has now officially filed its application to make the name change with the UK's Registrar of Companies.

There's no word yet on when the name change will become official but as we reported on Monday it may be a moot point. Rumors have sprouted up once again that SCi/Eidos could be getting some takeover bids from EA and Ubisoft.

Much like Midway, 2008 has not been the best financial year for UK publisher SCi, the parent company of Eidos. The company began the year by rejecting a takeover bid from an unnamed third party that caused a massive drop in its stocks. That price loss caused the management team to resign. Since then the new management team has cut 200 team members from its company, canceled a number of games and shut down its internal game developer Pivotal Studios.

Today the UK site the Daily Mail is reporting that both Electronic Arts and Ubisoft are making "early- stage" offers to SCi to purchase the publisher. Currently SCi/Eidos's total financial worth is only 50 million pounds. The story, which uses unnamed sources, claims that EA and Ubisoft are thinking about buying Eidos while it is cheap because of its high profile game franchises like Tomb Raider and Hitman.

Earlier this month THQ became the latest Western game publisher to open an office in Shanghai, China. Today the Develop web site reports that SCi (the parent company of Eidos) has followed THQ and opened up their own Shanghai studio, to be called Eidos Shanghai.

The new studio will mainly be used for outsourcing duties for Eidos' upcoming line-up of game as it's cheaper to have things like art assets be made in China. There's no word yet if Eidos Shanghai plans to expand into developing their own games as Ubisoft has done with their own local dev studio. THQ's studio will be used to help in the creation of the company's growing list of Asian-based free-to-play PC game titles.

A while ago SCi bought out Eidos and adopted the Eidos brand as its public name while still retaining its SCi name for the main company. Now the UK based SCi has announced in its latest financial numbers that it plans to re-name itself as Eidos PLC."

According to the press release, ""The Eidos name is widely recognized in the games marketplace and is our trading name. The board feels that it would be beneficial to align the name of the listed company to the strong product brand that Eidos represents in order to benefit from a single identity and clearer outward and internal communication." The name change will be officially proposed during SCi annual meeting on Dec. 2.

In the meantime SCi, under its current desigation, has recorded a GBP99.1 million loss for its current financial year that ended on June 30. The company sold just 7 million total units of its games during those 12 months with Kane and Lynch: Dead Men selling the most at 1.4 million. SCi is counting on Tomb Raider Underworld to help them in their current financial year along with upcoming games like Battlestations Pacific, Just Cause 2 and Batman: Arkham Asylum.

It's July which means it's earnings season for publicly traded companies. That means a number of game publishers will be announcing their earnings for their last quarter (which ended June 30). One of the first out of the gates is UK based SCi, the parent company of Eidos. In a new note this week, the publisher announced that its previously announced restructuring plans to reduce costs has put the company "in good shape" for the rest of the year.

At the moment revenues are expected to be £134 million for the company's 2008/2008 fiscal year that ended June 30 with more details to be announced in September. Currently Eidos is riding high on the success of the PC launch of Age of Conan with co-publisher Funcom; the report states that it got to the 1 million sales mark faster than expected.

For the rest of 2008 Eidos plans to release Tomb Raider Underworld and in the first half of 2009 it will release Just Cause 2, Battlestations Pacific and an unnamed game based on DC Comics' Batman. There's no mention of two previously announced Eidos games, Highlander and Shellshock 2.

Remember earlier today when we posted up word on a new cash infusion for Eidos's parent company SCi via Warner Bros.? Yeah.....about that. It looks like the nearly $120 million buy out of SCi shares comes with a higher cost than previously anticipated. 1Up.com is reporting through unnamed sources that Eidos's entire US PR, marketing and sales staff have been laid off as part of the new Warner Bros. deal.

Eidos' US staff just moved into new offices about a year ago in Redwood City, California (the same location as their in-house development studio Crystal Dynamics) so this new move to lay off their PR team, if true, is a huge surprise. It comes at an especially awkward time as Eidos, together with Funcom, are getting ready to launch on May 20 perhaps their biggest title this year, Age of Conan. We should learn more about what's happening with Eidos' North American operations next week.

Just a couple of days ago, UK based SCi (the parent company of game publisher Eidos) announced it had broken off takeover talks with an unnamed third party. However it's clear that the new management of the company are no dummies. Instead of an all out purchase, SCi has now gotten a new deal with Warner Bros.(whom they already have a publishing deal) to sell off a large number of SCi stock to the UK movie studio.

The amount of shares amounts to about £60 million ($118.5 million) and that amount of money should allow SCi to have both available cash and new credit to expand their operations in the US. This is good news for the publisher who earlier this year had to lay off 300 team members and cancel a number of in-development game titles. Under their Eidos brand SCi has a number of game titles due out in 2008 including Age of Conan (with Funcom), Highlander and the latest Tomb Raider game

Last January, UK based publisher SCi (the parent company of Eidos) rejected a takeover offer from an unnamed third party. That move caused the company's stocks to head to a 17 year company low and forced the management team to resign following stockholder protests. The new management team decided to take drastic measures by cutting 200 jobs and canceling 14 games.

Recently SCi announced it was once again in talks with an unnamed third party over a possible takeover bid (although unconfirmed rumors pointed the finger at NBC Universal) but today the company once again revealed that it had rejected the latest offer, saying that it did "not represent sufficient value". There was also some concern that a long takeover process would be risky as well. Will history repeat itself and see the company's stock plunge down again? We will see.