With the combined powers of Activision Blizzard, the company feels that it's ready to take on one of the multimedia's top contenders: Apple. The company plans to catapult on their Guitar Hero franchise's success by creating an online music platform of their own that could rival iTunes.

"I don't think there have been a lot of credible alternatives to iTunes but Guitar Hero certainly has that potential," said by CEO Bobby Kotick. With over five billion songs sold, you're up for a challenge there Bob. Kotick said that developing a Guitar Hero online music platform is the "natural evolution" of a 20 million unit selling, $1 billion dollar revenue generating franchise.

Microsoft took a swing at iTunes with their Zune marketplace, but whiffed: Apple's powerhouse app still goes on strong. With iTunes's number of customers catching up with McDonald's amount, Kotick and co. sure picked a powerful target!

FinancialTimes:Activision to launch iTunes rival