January 13^th, 2005 (1:39pm) - Just like the movie industry before it, the videogame industry is being taken over by money hungry organizations and now one of the worlds biggest corporations is looking to buy its way into the industry as few have done before it. Yes, media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. is looking to purchase a third party publishers and developers, including third party giants Activision and Electronic Arts. Rupert Murdoch holdings include Fox, Sky television networks, the British newspapers "The Sun" and "The Times," and book publisher Harper Collins.

Speaking at a US investment conference, Peter Chernin admitted that News Corp. was "kicking the tires of pretty much all video games companies." He added, "We see [games] as a big business and would like to get into it," according to a report in today’s Financial Times.

Chernin mentioned that Activision is one the videogame publishers that they are considering to purchase. Activision is valued just under $3 billion whereas Electronic Arts is valued at around $19 billion.

"We are struggling with the gap between companies like Electronic Arts, which come with a high price tag, and the next tier of companies," he explained. "These may be too focused on one or two product lines."

Chernin did not clarify on how big of an investment New Corp. would be willing to make, although he did mention that the company has the flexibility to drop large amounts of cash for videogame publishers and he also mentioned that other media companies are interested in moving into the videogame industry.