virtual worlds

Kids who immerse themselves in Club Penguin, the online virtual world for youngsters from 8 to 14, can chat with friends' penguin avatars in icicle-covered cafes and earn coins for accessories like sombreros—a must-have in Antarctica. For Club Penguin's owner, New Horizon Interactive, all that virtual commerce could soon translate into a wad of real loot.

Sony and News Corp. are said to be interested in paying as much as $400 million for the site, based on reports from blogs paidContent.org and GigaOm. Neither Club Penguin nor the would-be suitors would comment. But the reports underscore the growing attractiveness of immersive online worlds as takeover targets and are fueling speculation that a wave of purchases may be on the horizon. Some of tech's titans—including Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Time Warner's AOL—have cause to engage in a round of purchases reminiscent of the social network land grab touched off when News Corp. bought MySpace.com for $580 million in 2005.