Round-Up: Ludlum/VU, THQ Split, New Pokemon

Author: by Brandon Sheffield, Simon Carless

Today's round-up includes news of Vivendi Universal's literary bent, THQ's stock split, and the latest Pokemon titles, as well as today's product news and Gamasutra job listings. - In literary gaming news, Vivendi Universal has acquired exclusive rights to publish games based on Robert Ludlum’s books, including the Bourne Identity (recently a successful film starring Matt Damon), and Covert One. VU Games’ CEO Bruce Hack said of the deal: “VU Games intends to aggressively establish Ludlum as a top tier games brand with high-quality franchises poised to go head-to-head with other major spy-action games in the industry.” - Game publisher and developer THQ has announced that, at the beginning of September, the company will make a three-for-two stock split of outstanding shares. This means that shareholders will receive an extra stock share for every two owned, with cash paid in the case of fractions. THQ was currently trading at $34.55 per share at the time of the announcement, down one half of one percent on the day's trading. - Nintendo of Japan has announced three new Pokemon properties for the DS. Popular adventure game and wacky dungeon-crawler developer Chunsoft will be making Pokemon: Fushigi no Dungeon Blue, a companion to the GBA Red title, and is planned for a Winter release in the Japanese territory. There will also be a puzzle game by the name of Pokemon Torouze, to be released in Japan this October, and Pokemon Ranger, which will be related to the upcoming movie with the same name. Western releases are likely but not officially confirmed. - Also updated today: product news including Rocketbox's announcement of its Complete Characters graphic library, as well as the latest Gamasutra job postings from companies including Activision/Z-Axis, Crystal Dynamics/Eidos, Davisville Game Studio Inc, Jamdat Mobile, Relic Entertainment, and multiple studios of Sony Computer Entertainment.