Vivendi Universal SA was created on 8 January 2001 with the merger of the Vivendi media empire with Canal+ television networks and the acquisition of media assets of Canadian company Seagram Company Ltd, owner of Universal Studios.

Vivendi Universal acquired MP3.com and the leading American publisher Houghton Mifflin in the year 2001. To raise the funds, Vivendi Universal sold its trade and medical publishing businesses to a group led by Cinven.

On 2 December 2007, Vivendi announced that it would be merging its game publishing unit with Activision in a $18.8 billion deal. This allowed the merged company, Activision Blizzard, to rival Electronic Arts, the world's biggest video games publisher at the time. The merger closed on 9 July 2008, for $9.8 billion. Vivendi held a 52% majority stake in the new business.