NBC Universal is in talks to buy the privately held, live-action film studio DreamWorks, according to news reports.
The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported that Universal was considering acquiring the studio founded in 1994 by Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg.
The board of General Electric (GE), which owns NBC Universal, is scheduled to meet but it's unclear how much the company would be willing to pay for DreamWorks.
DreamWorks Animation, the animation studio that was spun off last year, is reportedly not a part of the discussions, but Universal would have the right to distribute future cartoon tiles from the company that created Shrek, the Journal reported.
DreamWorks has created such movies as American Beauty and Gladiator but the studio has scaled back its plans over the years. It abandoned plans to build a high-tech studio lot in Los Angeles in 1999, sold its music division in 2004 and has curtailed its TV production.
Universal, along with Paramount Pictures, is considering a possible breakup of United International Pictures, the overseas movie distribution apparatus they jointly own. UIP also distributes DreamWorks' films overseas.
Dismantling the company would allow both studios to establish their own international distribution operations, which is considered an important source of revenue.
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Godzilla vs. Mothra: In a simmering legal tussle, Google is asking a judge to reject Microsoft's bid to keep a prized research engineer from taking a job at the internet search company, saying the software titan filed its lawsuit to frighten other workers from defecting.
Microsoft sued Kai-Fu Lee, one of its former executives, and Google last week, claiming that by taking the Google job, Lee was violating an agreement barring him from working for a direct competitor in an area that overlapped with his role at Microsoft. Google (GOOG) countersued last week, seeking to override Microsoft's noncompete provision.
Google's filings include details about a conversation Lee had with Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, suggesting that the software company is becoming increasingly concerned about Google siphoning away talent.
Microsoft (MSFT) said it paid Lee well in exchange for his promises to honor confidentiality and noncompete agreements. The company said Lee made more than $3 million during nearly five years in Redmond, and that he earned more than $1 million last year.
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Games to go: Retail sales of U.S. video-game hardware, software and accessories rose 21 percent in the first six months of the year, as the popularity of handheld devices offset a decline in aging game consoles.
The video games industry, which has been rocked this month by concerns over sexual content in one of its most popular titles, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, saw sales rise to over $4.1 billion in the period, from $3.4 billion in 2004, research firm NPD Group said. Overall unit sales rose 11 percent.
NPD said the gains were buoyed by the introduction of new portable handheld game devices, including Sony's PlayStation Portable and Nintendo's DS dual-screen machine. Overall, portable game hardware sales rose 181 percent over a year ago, the study said.
Sales of console hardware, such as Sony's (SNE) PlayStation 2, Nintendo's (NTDOY) GameCube and Microsoft's Xbox, fell 6 percent.
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Compiled by David Cohn. AP and Reuters contributed to this report.
