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Hollywood’s march into the games industry continues unabated: the American production company Genius Products, the majority shareholders of which are Miramax founders the Weinstein brothers, is moving into the games market.
Genius has already signed up InXile’s Line Rider for release on DS, PC and Wii later this year and plans to sign up more titles from independent developers.
The company operates primarily as a distributor of The Weinstein Company’s home entertainment products, but plans to use its box-shifting muscle to build a foundation in the games industry.
"Over the past few years, we have built one of the preeminent distribution platforms and assembled one of the leading teams in the home entertainment industry. We are well positioned to deliver record revenue, operating cash flow and earnings by fully exploiting our platform.
"Our planned entry into video games is a great example of value creating, higher margin opportunities we will continue to aggressively pursue in 2008 and beyond," said chairman Stephen K. Bannon.
"In 2008, we enter phase two of our aggressive growth strategy which will focus on revenue growth and improvements in margin through brand and content partnerships, content production, intellectual property ownership, and the acquisition of additional revenue streams."
Trevor Drinkwater, president and CEO, added: "Our management expertise in the development, marketing and distribution of video games creates a tremendous growth opportunity for Genius. As planned, this marks the beginning of our entrance into the fast growing and exciting interactive software category and the expansion of our distribution expertise in multiple entertainment based product categories."
