In recent years, Sega has been the subject of numerous acquisition rumours, the most of which have included a larger firm acquiring the Sonic the Hedgehog developer. Sega is reportedly close to acquiring Rovio Entertainment, the company behind the popular mobile game Angry Birds, for a cool $1 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal (paywall).
If nothing goes wrong or the agreement “breaks down or drags out,” the newspaper claims that the sale might be completed by early next week. Additionally, this wasn’t the first time the business came close to being bought out. Rovio Entertainment was in talks to be acquired by Israel-based Playtika Holding Corp. for more than $800 million earlier this year. But back in March, those discussions came to an end without a finalised agreement.
Rovio Entertainment hasn’t been able to come close to replicating Angry Birds’ enormous success since. Rovio claims that the first mobile game to have 1 billion downloads was Angry Birds, which just passed the 5 billion download mark for the entire Rovio library of games.
Such a purchase would be a significant step for SEGA, enabling the business to gain more market share in the mobile space. As previously stated, SEGA believes that mobile gaming will “strengthen global mobile and online games.”
With its robust intellectual property portfolio, SEGA could leverage Rovio to quickly improve its selection of mobile games. Both SEGA and Rovio Entertainment have been contacted by Insider Gaming, but neither has responded with an official statement regarding the report.
