According to a report published by the Wall Street Journal, Sega Sammy would be close to acquire Roviothe company behind the mobile games in the Angry Birds series, for one billion dollars.
According to the sources of the newspaper, the acquisition will be made official during the course of next week, provided that the negotiations do not jump in the meantime.
Rovio is a Finnish company founded in 2003, initially under the name of Relude. The company rose to prominence in 2009 when it launched on mobile devices Angry Birds, a game where you have to use a slingshot to launch birds and knock out a squadron of pigs who want to steal their eggs. A simple idea, but one that turned out to be successful. In April 2022, the series reached 5 billion downloads on all platforms and a film and an animated series were also made from it.
Rovio was previously in talks to be acquired by Playtika, a rival Israeli company, for more than $800 million. However, the negotiations ended in March with no results.
Sega instead it needs no great introduction to our readers. It is a Japanese company that has been producing video games since the mid-1960s and has also made successful consoles such as the Megadrive. It is the home of franchises such as Sonic The Hedgehog, Yakuza, Shin Megami Tensei, Persona, Football Managaer, Total War and Company of Heroes, just to name a few.
The acquisition would clearly allow the Japanese company to expand its influence in the mobile market, which is substantially larger and more profitable than the PC and console markets. In any case, for the moment take these rumors with a grain of salt, waiting for the agreement to actually be made official by Sega and Rovio.