TF1 and Titus Interactive Form Partnership

French giants have seen the future and decided to shape it their way.

Posted by Staff
TF1, the French television network, and Titus Interactive, the video games publisher, have signed on the November 21, 2000 an industrial agreement to develop video games for all platforms. It involves a cooperative effort in areas where the companies clearly complement each other. Initial joint developments will include:
The availability of Titus games on TF1's general-interest portal tf1.fr;
The development of games tailored to mobile portals (WAP, GPRS, UMTS) and personal assistants;
The marketing by TF1 Video of Titus products, most notably through distribution channels such as news stands.

TF1 and Titus will also cooperate subsequently in the following areas as opportunity dictates:
The development of new products (video games, cartoons…) based on licenses controlled by one party or the other. TF1 will thus help Titus benefit from its long-standing relationships with the world's top content owners;
The introduction of advertising in video games;
Merchandising;
The development of games tailored for video on-line applications (ADSL, cable, satellite…).

Fast-developing digital technologies and the increasing availability of copper-based as well as mobile high speed networks are bringing together the heretofore separate worlds of video games and television.

In addition, the video game market is poised for a new period of strong growth due to both the advent of these new delivery systems which are in many cases well adapted to video games, and the roll-out of a new generation of high-performance video consoles (PlayStation 2, Game Boy Advance, Xbox…)

Titus Interactive is particularly well positioned to take advantage of these market developments. After the acquisition of the companies Virgin Interactive and Interplay Entertainment, which brought the company's headcount to a total of 700, no less than 400 developers, writers and artists develop new products in Titus' eight studios. Last year the company's revenue reached € 142.8 M .

As for TF1, it has acquired considerable expertise in the areas of on-line content distribution with the tf1.fr portals and its mobile portal, of high-speed video, of multimedia product distribution with TF1 Video, and of subsidiary rights management with TF1 Licence.
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