After reverting their plans to go public last year, CNet today reports on new plans of the company to raise money. According to this article, DVD Express is planning to merge with Maximum Holdings, a builder of video game portals.

The deal is expected to be announced next week, and it seems that Maximum shareholders have acquired 51%, the majority stake in “DVD Express”, after their own cash infusion through their sale to the aggressive games publishers Eidos last month.

Representatives from Maximum and DVD Express declined to comment. However, the merger makes perfect sense with Sony’s “Playstation 2” and next generation consoles from Sega and Nintendo on the horizon, all of which support the DVD format. It would be a natural expansion for DVD to diversify into the games market to sell both, the DVD video and the DVD games side. The ability of video game consoles to allow DVD Video viewing wil give another explosive boost to the format and catapult DVD in more households faster than any other medium before, due to the fast acceptance of these consoles by consumers.

Some analysts predict that next year will be a watershed period for DVDs, after Sony debuts its “Playstation 2” video game player — the first game console with the capacity to play CDs and DVDs.