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Forum - View topicNEWS: Madhouse for Sale
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Zeiram
 Posts: 317 |
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Uh, is this a good thing or a bad thing? I mean it's great to provide more content (not necesarily new abilities) for cell phones (and hybrids) but eh, buying a company instead of working with it as a partner? Like with liscensing. It's like the company is in control instead of the people in control of madhouse before.
Maybe this just sounds worse than it is. I love technology immensely as it always fascinates me what new gadjets, gismos, and fantasy coem to reality may occur, but corporations are evil! Too many of them are monopolising everyone. Microsoft deserves being hacked and warnerbrothes needs to be broken up along with viacom etc. Hmm ok I have ideals, but no scientific research/observations of the scope of the apparent situation. I just don't like it when things get out of hand and I hate oppression by any means save for maybe a speeding ticket. |
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gnollman
 Posts: 535 Location: Richmond, KY |
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You know, somehow I figured Madhouse would be worth more than 5.5 mill USD.....
I guess anime studios really are niche corporations.... |
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Bishop
Posts: 19 |
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Closer to 6 million US, but yeah, it does seem a little cheap for a studio with as high a reputation as Madhouse has for their animation. But more content for cell phones? I will admit the Japanese are a little better about their use of cell phones than Europeons and especially Americans, but I nearly hit a poor guy in Sendai last year because he was trying to send a text message and drive at the same time.
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littlegreenwolf
 Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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Oi, watching anime on your cel phone while driving... this can only end badly. |
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grael
Posts: 1 |
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actually it is closer to 5.5 million
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Stueypark
Posts: 116 |
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Actually it's closer to $5,475,243.55
but I guess that's being a little picky :lol: |
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vherub
Posts: 49 |
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synergy at its most rampantly stupid: this will either end with the talent trickling out of madhouse until people wonder why they dont produce anything worthwhile anymore, the cell phone people taking an active role in the everyday ops to make them "more profitable" or the cellphone company using a few madhouse animations for their advertising or animated pictures on their cellphone screens and otherwise wondering why they bought madhouse until a few years go by and they decided to sell it to someone else who hopefully will allow madhouse to do what they do best- making topnotch animation
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Lost_Toys
Posts: 50 |
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There is a reason why you cant see having content, as in TV or animation on a cell phone, as being something important. It is the simple fact that in America, and most European states, that cell phones can be used whenever, and however you want. In Japan, you cant use your cellphones inside of trains. This is a huge market you can attach yourself to. Most commuters will be on the train for about 30 minutes per way. This is the perfect amount of time for them to watch an anime. Currently, Japan has cellphones which can do streaming TV video for the same reason. Text Messaging is huge in Japan because of the certain limitations impossed on cell phone use. As commuiting increases, so does the time in which a person has nothing to do. Synergy is where all the markets are headed. If you are a cell phone firm, you want to have your hands in as many pockets as you can. You will try to be as proactive with content distribution as you can. It is much better to control the making of the content than to pay for its use [ie. in house rather than outsourced]. This is why Charter Communications in the US wants Disney, this is why Disney bought the Muppets rights, and why ADV and other labels have now set up their own CD distribution. In the long run, they save money. |
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jmays
ANN Past Staff
 Posts: 1390 Location: St. Louis, MO |
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I don't think it's quite that simple. We've been down the synergy road with, for example, Disney before, and they've pulled their hands back out of the studio store and sports franchise pockets. They'll probably still want to be involved in as much as possible, but it's not a foolproof formula for success. |
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Lost_Toys
Posts: 50 |
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Never said it was full proof, but, on a purely economical standpoint, this is a brilliant move. If you are going to be pushing the next frontier in terms of on demand content for your phone, you want to ensure that have as much content as feasibly possible. Having an animation firm under your wing, which can produce content specifically for your hardware as well as auxillery markets [TV/Movie], you are looking at a sound investment. Either way, you will make money off of the purchase unless something goes horribly wrong. Disney is a bad example of the simple reason that they have more to loss from a failing franchise. As a large corporation [we are talking billions in revenues] your shareholders and chairmen will want to get rid of anything that is in the red, even if the original investment is never made up. A smaller firm will be more willing to bank more on long run success because they are smaller [more liable for their actions]. They will tredge into territory more realistically. |
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vherub
Posts: 49 |
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this might make sense if madhouse studios was mostly involved with animation for projects that targeted large-eyed, lovesick teens dealing with angst, but madhouse has earned a reputation on high quality animation in a more mature direction. The Index corporation has chiseled its reputation in the cuthroat japanese cell phone industry by reinventing itself as the women's magazine of cell phones with horoscopes, advice columns, love questionaires. Index also recently purchased mobliss, which gained attention by being the messaging technology used by att wireless during american idol for voting with your cell phone. Now these are all well and good "synergy" decisions, but as a fan of anime first and foremost, this decision to purchase madhouse appears to be one to use it to continue to target the portion of the population that wants women's mag content on their cell phone, fanatically follows programs like american idol and believes in fortune telling. if i was an employee there, id be thinking the days of projects like vampire hunter bloodlust are no more. |
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Godaistudios
Posts: 2075 Location: Albuquerque, NM (the land of entrapment) |
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I wouldn't get the feelings of no more major madhouse projects. It makes money. A LOT of money is made actually. I doubt the Japanese businessmen will just say screw it, let's only focus on the cel phone portion here. Instead, what it allows them to do is to produce more content for their phones, probably with less overhead since they own the business instead of having to go through all the hoops of negotiation. Give it some time. In all likelyhood, they will continue to produce at the same level they have in the past.
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Lost_Toys
Posts: 50 |
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Exactly. One of the great advantages of this deal is that they now have access to all material in which Mad House owns the rights to, as well as contacts with other animation firms [since Mad House is best known for their Background work in films]. With these ties, they can have access to a greater amount of animation content at a much cheaper price than other firms. What does this mean? Higher profits. They can then sell the content to service providers at current - even lower than current - prices and make a nice profit off of it. Everything from simple wallpaper,s, to sound splices and full frame content will be produced and sold. This is great for both parties. |
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