Disney’s $350m development warchest

As part of its end-of-year financials last week, the company confirmed that its fourth quarter profit had doubled to $782m off the back of box office hits Pirates of the Caribbean and Cars.

In addition, CFO Tom Staggs told Bloomberg that a huge chunk of its forward planning balance – specifically, some $350m, is going on video games development during the next five to seven years.

Disney’s Buena Vista Games division has been very active of late, acquiring Climax’s Racing studio in September and last week announcing it had signed up Stainless Games’ Novadrome for Xbox Live Arcade. Last week also saw the announcement that it will open a new games studio in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA which would make games purely for Nintendo platforms.