Activision is an American video game publisher, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. Its current CEO is Eric Hirshberg. It was founded on October 1, 1979 and was the world's first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles. Its first products were cartridges for the Atari 2600 video console system published from July 1980 for the US market and from August 1981 for the international market . Activision is now one of the largest third party video game publishers in the world and was also the top publisher for 2007 in the United States. On January 18,... 2008, Activision announced they were the top US publisher in 2007, according to the NPD Group. On December 2, 2007, it was announced that Activision would be acquired by Vivendi, with Vivendi contributing its gaming division plus cash, in exchange for a majority stake in the new group. The merger between Activision and Vivendi Games took place on July 9, 2008, with the newly formed company known as Activision Blizzard.
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