NBCUniversal Explores Video Games After Comcast Spinoff, Sources Say

NBCUniversal is exploring a move into the video game business, three people with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters in the report on NBCUniversal’s gaming exploration, days after parent Comcast announced plans to spin the media company off as a standalone public company. The gaming exploration is in its early stages, with no specific transactions or partnerships under discussion, the sources said. Any deal would probably come only after the tax-free separation, which Comcast expects to close in approximately one year.

The exploration is the first concrete growth lane NBCUniversal has named for its post-Comcast life, and the signal arrives as legacy media companies broadly chase scale. Paramount closed a $110 billion bid for Warner Bros Discovery in February. Comcast itself completed the spinoff of most of its cable networks, including CNBC and MS NOW, into Versant in January 2026. The new NBCUniversal, led by current Comcast co-CEO Mike Cavanagh, will inherit the studio, theme parks, NBC, Telemundo, Peacock, Bravo and Sky, but no gaming business of its own.

The Spin-Off Sets the Stage

Comcast said on June 29 that it will split itself into two publicly traded companies through a tax-free spin-off of NBCUniversal and Sky, per Comcast’s plan to spin off NBCUniversal, ending a 15-year combination of content and distribution that no longer fits how either business is valued on Wall Street. Comcast shares rose nearly 8% on Monday after the announcement, and the cable and media spinoff has been telegraphed for months. Mike Cavanagh, Comcast’s co-CEO, will run the new NBCUniversal as CEO, while former Comcast chief financial officer Michael Angelakis returns as CEO of the connectivity business Comcast will keep.

The split sorts the company into two distinct economic machines. Comcast, the remaining piece, will hold the broadband, wireless and business services platform that reaches more than 65 million homes and businesses, the unit that generated $70.7 billion in revenue last year, more than half of the parent’s total. The spun-off NBCUniversal will collect the growing theme parks division, Universal film and television studios, NBC and Telemundo networks, Peacock, Bravo and Sky, the European broadcaster reported in June to be working on a deal to acquire most of rival ITV. NBCUniversal will keep the same dual-class share structure as Comcast, and Comcast plans to monetize up to 19.9% of its retained stake in the spun-off media company over time.

Gaming Joins NBCUniversal’s Post-Spin Agenda

The gaming question surfaced first in the Reuters exclusive published June 29, citing the three people with direct knowledge of the matter. NBCUniversal is reviewing opportunities in digital gaming and weighing the launch of new entertainment franchises as part of its post-spin growth plan.

The sources said no tie-ups have been discussed and any potential transaction would only come after a period following the split. The exploration is consistent with a long-standing interest inside Comcast, where Brian Roberts, the chairman and co-CEO, has personally tracked gaming as a future revenue lane. The pieces are now in Mike Cavanagh’s hands once the spin closes.

Comcast has explored deals involving Activision, Electronic Arts and Epic Games before, according to one person with direct knowledge of those earlier talks. None of those conversations resulted in a transaction. The new context is independence: as a standalone company without the parent’s balance sheet, NBCUniversal will be negotiating from a different starting line, and possibly for a different kind of asset. The signals point toward digital and interactive entertainment, in particular.

A Year-Long Pause on Big Bets

The tax-free structure of the spin imposes a hard clock on any acquisition. NBCUniversal needs to remain independent for at least a year after the spin-off to preserve the tax-free treatment, a constraint Comcast spelled out on its June 29 investor call.

Comcast will also keep a stake of as much as 19.9% in NBCUniversal for up to a year after the split, which it plans to monetize over time, per the Reuters spin-off coverage. The retained stake gives the parent a financial reason to keep the new company whole for a tax year. It does not stop NBCUniversal from doing a deal; it stops NBCUniversal from doing a deal that looks like a pre-arranged sale.

There is one escape hatch, and the Reuters sources pointed to it. The company could explore a transaction sooner if there were no prior deal discussions during the pre-spin window. That is why the three people who spoke to Reuters stressed that no specific transactions are currently in play, and why the gaming conversation is being framed as exploration at this stage. The early-stage language is itself a tax strategy, preserving NBCUniversal’s optionality without locking in a deal that would invalidate the spin’s tax-free status.

The clock matters most for the largest possible targets. A deal to acquire a major publisher would be hard to keep quiet in the pre-spin window, and any such deal would invite scrutiny from tax authorities and the Federal Trade Commission. Mid-sized studios, mobile developers and licensing partnerships are quieter and easier to fit into the structure. Roberts told Reuters that the company sees the separation as the better path for both businesses, allowing each to run independently with dedicated management and strong assets. He rejected, on the same day, the suggestion that the spin-off is a prelude to further deals, framing it as a path to organic growth. The two statements, from the same news cycle, are the tension the year ahead will be lived inside.

The Gaming Trail NBCUniversal Has Already Blazed

NBCUniversal is not walking into gaming cold. The company already operates the closest thing in the legacy media world to a working game-to-entertainment pipeline through its partnership with Nintendo on Universal theme park attractions and animated films tied to the Super Mario franchise. That deal let Universal convert one of gaming’s largest character libraries into a recurring theme-park and box-office engine. The structure is the template NBCUniversal is likely to scale if it formalizes a gaming strategy.

Comcast’s prior internal exploration of deals involving Activision, Electronic Arts and Epic Games shows the kinds of assets Roberts and his team have been watching. None of those talks led to a transaction, and the same executives will be running the spun-off NBCUniversal.

• Partnership with Nintendo on Super Mario theme park attractions and animated films.
• Prior internal exploration of deals involving Activision, Electronic Arts and Epic Games.
• Universal Pictures franchise catalog (Fast & Furious, Jurassic World, Despicable Me) as potential game IP.
• Theme parks division as a tested game-to-experience conversion engine.

The Wider Media Reshuffle

The gaming conversation at NBCUniversal is part of a larger pivot by media companies toward interactive entertainment as linear TV and theatrical revenues decline. Paramount won a bidding war for Warner Bros Discovery in February with a $110 billion bid, a transaction that set the price for what scale in legacy media is now worth. Netflix, the loser in that auction, has surfaced as a possible buyer of NBCUniversal’s studio and content library if the spin-off opens the door, though a person familiar with the matter said such a deal would face major regulatory and structural obstacles. Media analyst Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson has said he does not expect either a Netflix-NBCUniversal combination or a Comcast-Charter deal.

The cable business that Comcast is shedding was losing broadband customers to fixed wireless from carriers such as T-Mobile and Verizon, and to fiber rivals building out their own networks. The connectivity side of the new Comcast will compete on speed and bundle, while the media side will compete on attention, and gaming is the highest-margin attention business in the room. The shift toward interactive entertainment is one NBCUniversal has already begun elsewhere; the company’s Peacock and Telemundo operations are funding mobile-first vertical video formats as part of a parallel effort to capture smartphone attention, in a bet that resembles Hollywood’s pivot to mobile microdrama format.

Take-Two Interactive Software holds major gaming intellectual property including Grand Theft Auto, the kind of franchise a media company would happily pay to convert into a decade of films and theme-park extensions. The broader gaming sector is also active, with other large gaming assets drawing attention from investors and dealmakers. The post-spin NBCUniversal will be evaluating opportunities in a market that already has multiple deep-pocketed buyers, and the gaming exploration is its opening hand.

• $70.7 billion: Comcast connectivity revenue last year.
• $27.09 billion: NBC and Peacock revenue in 2025.
• $11.29 billion: Universal Pictures, DreamWorks Animation, Focus Features studio revenue last year.
• $9.84 billion: Theme parks revenue last year.
• 19.9%: Comcast’s stake in NBCUniversal for up to a year after the spin.
• $110 billion: Paramount’s February 2026 bid for Warner Bros Discovery.

What Cavanagh Just Told Investors

The clearest read on what gaming might mean for the post-spin NBCUniversal came from Mike Cavanagh, the executive who will run the company. The Reuters report on the gaming exploration included a Cavanagh statement that framed the moment in a single line. The language matters because it puts gaming inside a broader set of growth lanes that NBCUniversal can pursue once it is no longer part of a regulated cable conglomerate. It also stops short of any commitment to a specific deal, which is what the tax-free clock requires.

the company now has the freedom to explore adjacent businesses where it has a right to compete.

Cavanagh, Comcast’s co-CEO, made the comment in the June 29 Reuters report on the gaming exploration. He will lead the new NBCUniversal, while Michael Angelakis, a former Comcast chief financial officer, returns as CEO of the connectivity business Comcast will keep. Brian Roberts will remain actively involved in leading both companies, with his super-voting shares likely to carry over to the spun-off NBCUniversal under its same dual-class structure.