Viacom Selling Rock Band Developer

Viacom is putting Harmonix up for sale, no bidders yet.

Viacom, the parent company of Harmonix Music Systems recently announced that they will be selling the developer of titles such as Rock Band and the recently release Dance Central. They did not give any reason for this decision, and no buyers have come forth as of writing.

There has been speculation from market analyst Doug Creutz that Activision will adopt Harmonix in order to reunite the Rock Band franchise with its competitor, Guitar Hero.

"We speculated several weeks ago that, given the declines in the music genre, it would make sense to (re)combine the Guitar Hero and Rock Band franchises, thus we believe Activision Blizzard is a potential buyer."

Rock Band 3 impressed reviewers, and sold 7,386 copies in its first week of release in the United Kingdom across all platforms. The slow sales contributed to a certain extent to financial loss for Viacom, although the company still seems to be making more money than last year.

Viacom's President and CEO, Philippe Dauman, claims the decision to sell Harmonix is to refocus the business.

"Our decision to exit this business strategy is to focus on what we do best, and that's creating world class entertainment," he said. "The console games business requires expertise we don't have. For us, this is all about focus."

Harmonix has recently released Rock Band 3 and Dance Central. Harmonix was purchased by Viacom in 2006 for a reported $175 million.