Macrovision Selected by Mastertronic Group as Official Content Protection Partner
Leader in value software publishing consolidates Macrovision’s market position
March 18th, 2005/... Macrovision® Corporation (Nasdaq: MVSN), the world's leading supplier of content protection and software management solutions, today announced that it has been selected by the recently expanded Mastertronic Group to be their official content protection partner. The Mastertronic Group, operating across Europe, sold four million value software units in their last financial year, and is the first value software publisher to commit to applying copy protection to all their titles.
The Mastertronic Group consists of three retail brands: Mastertronic Added Dimension (MAD), Sold Out and 'PC Gamer Presents'. The company is Europe's leading value publisher and sells at £4.99 & £9.99 (€7.99 and €14.99) price points. Their product catalogue contains a wide variety of leading PC titles previously published at full price by Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Eidos, Vivendi, Codemasters and other leading publishers.
"Mastertronic's decision to select Macrovision as their official content-protection partner is a valued endorsement of our SafeDisc Advanced solution by the leading player in the European value publishing market," says Martin Brooker, Director of Sales, Macrovision EMEA. "This exemplifies the need for content protection at all levels of retail distribution."
"Mastertronic's commitment to the games industry requires us to source content protection that is transparent to the consumer yet highly effective at preventing illegal copying," adds Andy Payne, Managing Director of Mastertronic Group. "Only Macrovision offers such tight security and protection whilst ensuring complete compatibility across all hardware configurations, and we therefore had no hesitation in signing them as our official content protection partner."
Macrovision had previously signed a contract with Sold Out. This new agreement extends the range of companies and titles protected by the Mastertronic Group.
For more information on Macrovision products and services across Europe, please email salesinfo-europe@macrovision.com or visit the Macrovision web site at www.macrovision.com.
For more information on Mastertronic Group's range of software, please visit:
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About Mastertronic Group Limited
Mastertronic is one of the best known electronic entertainment brands in Europe. It pioneered the European console market with its launch of the Sega Master System, invented the budget retail sector and built an international development and publishing operation under the Virgin Mastertronic label.
The brand was subsequently relaunched as The Mastertronic Group Limited in 2003 by founder Frank Herman, together with Andy Payne and Garry Williams.
The Group now dominates the European value publishing sector through its retail brands M.A.D. (Mastertronic Added Dimension), Sold Out (the UK's largest-selling budget operation, acquired by the Group in 2004) and PC Gamer Presents, a unique quality-assured brand in association with the leading games magazine publisher Future Publishing.
The Group also offers, through its wholly owned subsidiary The Producers Limited (also acquired in 2004) a 'cradle to grave' service for physical product, from marketing through packaging and warehousing to retail and electronic distribution. In addition, MAD 4 Games, a wireless channel for content delivery to mobile phones was established first quarter 2005.
About Macrovision
Macrovision develops and markets content and software value management solutions for the video, music and software industries. Macrovision's technologies are embedded in over 9 billion DVD, VHS and CD units representing over $130 billion of protected entertainment content. In the software market, Macrovision's software value management solutions are licensed to software developers. They include the FLEXnetTM universal licensing platform and the InstallShield® suite of software installation, repackaging and update solutions, which are deployed on more than 500 million desktops worldwide. Over 50,000 software publishers and hundreds of Fortune 1000 companies use Macrovision's technologies to maximize the value of their software. Macrovision is headquartered in Santa Clara, California and has offices worldwide. More information about Macrovision can be found at www.macrovision.com.
® 2005 Macrovision Corporation. Macrovision, SafeDisc, InstallShield and FLEXnet, are registered trademarks or trademarks of Macrovision Corporation. All other brands and product names and trademarks are the registered property of their respective companies.
This press release may contain "forward-looking" statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. A number of factors could cause Macrovision's actual results to differ from anticipated results expressed in such forward-looking statements. Such factors are addressed in Macrovision's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2003 and its latest Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended December 31, 2004, which are on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (available at www.sec.gov). Macrovision assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.
For more information, contact:
Simon Byron, PR for Macrovision Europe
Barrington Harvey
+44 (0)7801 932 746
Simon Mehlman
Macrovision Europe
+44 (0)7812 146 530
Danielle Woodyatt
Lunch PR for Mastertronic
+44 (0) 207 633 0633