Former Yahoo COO and current Quadrangle Group partner Dan Rosensweig will take over as CEO and president of Activision Blizzard’s powerful Guitar Hero franchise, according to sources close to the situation.

Rosensweig will run the hot gaming company’s division, located in Silicon Valley, for Activision head Bobby Kotick.

The pair know each other well, since Kotick served on Yahoo’s board for many years when Rosensweig was a key exec there. He’s also just the kind of consumer Web exec that Kotick has been looking for to turbocharge the largely retail Guitar Hero business online.

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We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Here’s an interview I did with Activision Chairman and CEO Bobby Kotick about the state of the gaming business.

It’s a good week to focus on the gaming industry since Electronic Arts abandoned its hostile acquisition bid for Take-Two Interactive over the weekend.

The move was–in part–in answer to Activision’s recent merger with Vivendi Games, which includes Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, one the most popular multi-player games. This has made Activision one of the gaming industry’s largest companies, due to some of its well-known franchises, especially its hugely popular Guitar Hero, which debuted version IV at D6.

In this third video, Kotick publicly demos “Guitar Hero IV” for the first time, with the help of special guest stars Paula Abdul of “American Idol” and skateboarding star Tony Hawk.

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We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Here’s an interview I did with Activision Chairman and CEO Bobby Kotick about the state of the gaming business.

It’s a good week to focus on the gaming industry since Electronic Arts abandoned its hostile acquisition bid for Take-Two Interactive over the weekend.

The move was–in part–in answer to Activision’s recent merger with Vivendi Games, which includes Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, one the most popular multi-player games. This has made Activision one of the gaming industry’s largest companies, due to some of its well-known franchises, especially its hugely popular Guitar Hero, which debuted version IV at D6.

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Apparently, rumors of Scrabulous’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.

So far.
Although the popular Facebook widget was supposed to be taken down two weeks ago and then last week–pretty much because it obviously infringed on the rights of the owners of the popular word game Scrabble–it is still up and working on the service and allowing new [...]

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Former New Yorker and now Los Angeleno Bobby Kotick is a very funny guy, always cracking wise about everything from politicians to art to his skills as a parent.
During an interview yesterday, he even got a few good ones off about the funny foibles of Activision, the gaming company he runs, even though it has [...]

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Here’s two interesting WSJ Online videos about the fast-changing video games industry.
This one is about the recent hookup between Vivendi and Activision, in a big deal that has shaken up the scene:

And this one is an interview with Electronic Arts’ John Riccitiello by WSJ’s Nick Wingfield:

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