Bandai Namco made a grab today for D3, parent of Puzzle Quest publisher D3 Publisher.
Bandai Namco claims it's already reached an agreement with the company's shareholders for a 70 percent stake -- and is aiming for full ownership, according to a press statement translated by interpreter Andria Sang.
According to the announcement, Bandai Namco sees synergies with D3 in the desire to develop more properties across the multiple simultaneous arenas of anime, toys and video games, as with D3 Publisher's Ben 10: Alien Force cartoon license.
Bandai Namco often investigates property expansions around animated series like Dragon Ball Z and Naruto; it does a Naruto collectible card game, for example, while D3 has distributed Naruto video games published by Tomy. The release mentions a cooperation on content expansion specifically around Ben 10; the cartoon series is produced by Cartoon Network, while D3 owns the license to publish the tie-in games.
Bandai Namco also mentions D3 Publisher's North American operations, noting the potential for technology sharing. Also likely to be a significant part of the decision is D3's subsidiary, Vicious Cycle Software, developer of the Vicious Engine middleware used in titles like Flushed Away and Dead Head Fred, in addition to Puzzle Quest.
Gamasutra has contacted both parties for comment and will update as we receive it.
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22282
Response: buy the competition.