Activision CEO Bobby Kotick and co-chairman Brian Kelly have each received bonuses from the company of approximately $3 million each. Michael Griffith, CEO of Activision Publishing, also received a bonus according to SEC filings, but his was only for around $1.5 million -- poor guy. The bonuses were given due to Activision's incredible success last year.

With the Vivendi merger imminent, it's worth noting some analysts find Activision an excellent investment. It's not every day you can clearly point to a game publisher and see guaranteed profits in the near future.

With a gallon of milk costing less than a gallon of gas in many places, it's not surprising to hear Activision CEO Bobby Kotick keep on message about console price cuts in this economy. Speaking with the Times Online, he believes there is real demographic expansion within the industry's customer base, but feels the cost of purchasing hardware is "prohibitive."

He points out that during economic slowdowns the game industry does well because people are looking for entertainment in their homes. Kotick may get his wish if the rumors of an incoming Xbox 360 price drop are true; at the same time, NPD figures show consumers warming up to the PS3's price. Meanwhile, we ponder making a car that runs on milk.

[Via GameDaily]

At the All Things Digital 6 conference, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick took the stage for an interview with Kara Swisher. During the session, Kotick introduced and showed off to the audience Guitar Hero World Tour. "I tried to get [Yahoo and Microsoft execs] Jerry Yang, Steve Ballmer, Sue Decker and Bill Gates to play Guitar Hero, but they weren't interested."

Instead, Kotick had Paula Abdul pull four people from the audience -- one of them just happened to be legendary skateboarder (and Activision franchiser) Tony Hawk -- to play an unnamed Lenny Kravitz song (we're guessing "Are You Gonna Go My Way," since it was used in the trailer). We've embedded the video, which features some in-game footage, after the break.

Responding to Activision CEO Bobby Kotick's remarks that EA sucks the soul out of the studios it acquires, an EA representative counters that the company finds the comments comical. Speaking with Newsweek, EA's VP of Corporate Communications, Jeff Brown, says that employees at the company just laughed at the statement.

Brown points out how radically things have changed at the publisher in recent years, which claims to have put creative control back into the hands of development teams. He says whatever perception there is about EA -- both internal and external -- needs to evolve along with the company. A recent EA employment survey shows things are changing internally, but it's probably going to take a little longer for gamers to agree, especially with fears of how the "old EA" would more-likely-than-not screw up whatever franchises it would acquire in a Take-Two takeover.

[Via GameDaily]

Speaking to Reuters, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said the slowing US economy will pressure console makers to lower prices. He believes with the rising costs of "fuel and food and housing," it's difficult to go out and buy a $399 console. Kotick also mentioned that he's concerned about EA's hostile takeover attempts of Take-Two because it'll essentially mean one company controls the video game sports category.

Considering Activision is in the software business, it isn't surprising Kotick would want consoles to be cheaper and be in as many homes as possible. This isn't the first time he's made statements like this, and as long as Activision doesn't get into hardware, it probably won't be the last. As much as we're happy to share Kotick's dream of cheaper consoles, we know that Nintendo isn't dropping prices anytime soon.

Image update: You're welcome, Copa.

Earlier this week Activision CEO Bobby Kotick made a bold statement saying that even with a $500 million or $1 billion investment his company couldn't produce a product that could compete with World of Warcraft -- lucky for him his company owns it. GameDaily reports that Lars Buttler, former VP of online at EA and current CEO of server-based game company Trion World Network, believes Kotick is just looking to scare off the competition.

Buttler tells the site that Kotick is just defending the merger and believes WoW is just the beginning of the "connected era." Buttler goes on to use some fancy buzzwords but dismisses the idea that nobody can take on WoW no matter what the investment. He even says if developers disagree with Kotick that they should call his company. Trion is currently starting up and allegedly has products "well under way," but currently has no announcements.

A proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission tells the tale of how the Activision Blizzard merger almost didn't happen. GameDaily sifted through the massive document to discover that discussions about the possible merger go back to November of 2006, with things really heating up going into last summer. After little progress on transaction terms, Jean-Bernard Lévy, CEO of Vivendi, called up Activision head Bobby Kotick in June to say that he "did not think it made sense to continue discussions concerning a possible transaction at that time."

Around July, Kotick contacted Lévy with Activision's new proposal. The lawyers went to work and sometime around September, with "little progress on open issues," Kotick called the deal off. Strangely, Blizzard's Mike Morhaime and other Blizzard managers (who were under the Vivendi umbrella at the time) stepped up and got things back on track with a management structure proposal. By November the Activision Blizzard deal was final and the industry got another 800 lb. gorilla to keep EA company.

GameDaily concluded its "Persons of the Year" feature today by announcing Nintendo America's COO Reggie Fils-Aime took the top spot; Microsoft's Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb took the readers' choice award. Fils-Aime bested Activision CEO Bobby Kotick (#2) and Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos (#3) because of the Wii's phenomenal success in the States. GameDaily had previously announced #4 and #5, which went to Aaron Greenberg and Jeff Gerstmann respectively.

Major Nelson -- guru of Xbox -- received the readers' choice award after politely directing his loyal readership to GameDaily's website. Before Major Nelson stepped up his campaign, Assassin's Creed producer Jade Raymond was in the lead. Too bad Raymond didn't win though, GameDaily ended up having "Men of the Year" awards rather than "Persons of the Year."

Read -- 2007 Persons of the Year #1
Read -- Persons of the Year: Readers' Choice Unveiled