EA Proposes To Buyout Take-Two For $2 Billion

Source

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Electronic Arts Inc. ("EA") (NASDAQ: ERTS - News) today announced that it has proposed to acquire Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. ("Take-Two") (NASDAQ: TTWO - News) in an all-cash merger valued at approximately $2.0 billion.

EA's proposal of $26 per share in cash represents a premium of 64 percent over Take-Two's closing stock price on Feb. 15th, the last trading day before EA sent its revised proposal to Take-Two, and a 63 percent premium over Take-Two's 30-day trailing average price over the thirty trading days ending on that date.

EA's proposal was contained in a letter sent on Feb. 19th by EA Chief Executive Officer John Riccitiello to Strauss Zelnick, Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors of Take-Two. The Take-Two Board's subsequent rejection of the EA proposal led to EA's decision to release the letter and bring its proposal to the attention of all Take-Two shareholders.

Mr. Riccitiello said today: "Our all-cash proposal is a unique opportunity for Take-Two shareholders to realize immediate value at a substantial premium, while creating long-term value for EA shareholders. Take-Two's game designers would also benefit from EA's financial resources, stable, game-focused management team, and strong global publishing capabilities."

The EA letter warned that further Take-Two delay in accepting EA's proposal could prevent Take-Two's shareholders and other constituents from realizing its benefits. "There can be no certainty that in the future EA or any other buyer would pay the same high premium we are offering today," Mr. Riccitiello wrote. The letter added that timely completion of the proposed transaction would allow EA's strong publishing and distribution network to positively impact the ongoing post-launch sales of GTA IV and support the new Take-Two titles scheduled for launch later in the year and during the holiday selling season.

As noted in EA's Feb. 19th letter, EA's proposal is not conditioned on any financing requirement. It is, however, subject to certain customary conditions as set forth in the letter. EA's $26 per share proposal is based on the current equity capitalization of Take-Two. Although EA indicated in the letter that its proposal was subject to negotiations commencing by Feb. 22nd, EA intends to keep its proposal open for the present to give Take-Two's shareholders and Board of Directors further time to consider it.Yahoo

The terms of service on these forums prevent me from expressing just how mad this makes me. I don't want the game industry to be like radio and television where only a handful of the richest ****s own everything.

Mr. Riccitiello said today: "Our all-cash proposal is a unique opportunity for Take-Two shareholders to realize immediate value at a substantial premium, while creating long-term value for EA shareholders. Take-Two's game designers would also benefit from EA's financial resources, stable, game-focused management team, and strong global publishing capabilities."
Yahoo

:lol:

Man, I needed that perk up before going into work. I'd like someone to use that quote as a subtitle in one of You Tube's clips of Madden 2008's piss poor AI and game glitches.

Have they not bought enough? EA is a power monger. This would be the worst thing for sports games ever, its already bad. This would basically end any competition EA had in the entire sports arena, I know most of you don't care about this. But to me it would be the end of sports video gaming. I hope they have the stuff to avoid this at all costs, like UBI did, I fear however they do not. _Bear

Yup, RIP sport games. Alot of people have for years now, thought NBA2K was much better then NBALIVE. I mean, only having one sport game for each league would suck bad.I haven't bought a Madden game in years, I was huge fan of the NFL2K and after the EA NFL deal, I've yet bought another NFL game. What would EA do to GTA? *Does Sideshow Bob shudder*

Personally I'd love to see Sony or Microsoft outbid them. They seem to treat their developers a hell of a lot better than EA does. We don't have yearly installments of Halo, Gears, God of War, or Gran Turismo. EA would destroy the Grand Theft Auto series.rragnaar

This is undoubtedly EA's direct response to the Activision Blizzard merger. This would be the worst time for Take-Two to do this since their stock will surely soar after Grand Theft Auto IV comes out. I doubt EA would manage a hostile takeover.

EA is pathetic, instead of trying to compete with their competitors by trying to improve their games, they'd rather buyout its competitors/ secure licensed deals in their sports games. EA is sure the worst in the gaming industry when it comes to eliminate the competition and being greedy.D3s7rUc71oN

I can't imagine that Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo would ever do things like that.:|

It's not about greed, it's about running a company and returning the investment of the shareholders.

[QUOTE="D3s7rUc71oN"]EA is pathetic, instead of trying to compete with their competitors by trying to improve their games, they'd rather buyout its competitors/ secure licensed deals in their sports games. EA is sure the worst in the gaming industry when it comes to eliminate the competition and being greedy.MarcusAntonius

I can't imagine that Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo ever doing things like that.:|

It's not about greed, it's about running a company and returning the investment of the shareholders.

I don't know but EA seems worse then MS (gaming related). When a company tries to make you pay in a game like the Godfather for content that's already in the game is just pure idiocy. Not to mention most of their games are average.

[QUOTE="D3s7rUc71oN"]EA is pathetic, instead of trying to compete with their competitors by trying to improve their games, they'd rather buyout its competitors/ secure licensed deals in their sports games. EA is sure the worst in the gaming industry when it comes to eliminate the competition and being greedy.MarcusAntonius

I can't imagine that Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo ever doing things like that.:|

:lol: No kidding eh?

Don't get me wrong, I think it sucks that so many takeovers are going on and there's not as much independence as there once was. But I find it hilarious when people act like EA is the great evil of videogames, in an industry under stranglehold by Microsoft, Sony, and the big N.

[QUOTE="MarcusAntonius"]

[QUOTE="D3s7rUc71oN"]EA is pathetic, instead of trying to compete with their competitors by trying to improve their games, they'd rather buyout its competitors/ secure licensed deals in their sports games. EA is sure the worst in the gaming industry when it comes to eliminate the competition and being greedy.D3s7rUc71oN

I can't imagine that Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo ever doing things like that.:|

It's not about greed, it's about running a company and returning the investment of the shareholders.

I don't know but EA seems worse then MS (gaming related). When a company tries to make you pay in a game like the Godfather for content that's already in the game is just pure idiocy. Not to mention most of their games are average.

Look, I realize that EA hate will always be en vogue, but think about what you're saying. Many companies are charging for in-game content that doesn't adversely affect the base gameplay in any significant way, its just bonuses and cosmetic stuff. In other words, if you don't like it, don't pay for it.

Even free online gaming providers, Sony and Nintendo are going to start charging for gimmicks and whatnot. The developers and the big three want the extra revenue, all you can do is vote with your wallet.

I would love to see GTA IV

GTA IV 2009

GTA IV 2010

GTA IV 2011

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080224/20080224005068.html?.v=1

It seems T2 denied the offer and did so by calling EA a bunch of frugal, opportunistic *****es.

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080224/20080224005068.html?.v=1

It seems T2 denied the offer and did so by calling EA a bunch of frugal, opportunistic *****es.

N3MO

OMG thank you, the best news of the day!

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080224/20080224005068.html?.v=1

It seems T2 denied the offer and did so by calling EA a bunch of frugal, opportunistic *****es.

N3MO

:lol:

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080224/20080224005068.html?.v=1

It seems T2 denied the offer and did so by calling EA a bunch of frugal, opportunistic *****es.

N3MO

:lol:... awesome!

...and MarcusAntonius, I understand that it is 'good business' for EA, but that doesn't entitle them to my sympathies. I'm a gamer, not a stockholder... and anything they do to bastardize the greatness that is Rockstar, hurts me, regardless of whether it puts money in EA's coffers. That is my take on it. As a consumer, I don't see why we have to take the "Oh please! Won't somebody think of the big corporations!?!" mentality.

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080224/20080224005068.html?.v=1

It seems T2 denied the offer and did so by calling EA a bunch of frugal, opportunistic *****es.

N3MO

I would also like to add with an extremely smart-ass tone that I called the exact reason for rejecting the offer. :P

Personally I'd love to see Sony or Microsoft outbid them. They seem to treat their developers a hell of a lot better than EA does. We don't have yearly installments of Halo, Gears, God of War, or Gran Turismo. EA would destroy the Grand Theft Auto series.rragnaar

I'm not fan of buyouts at all, I prefer development teams and game companies to stay independent and promote competition and better products across a wide range of platforms.

But if forced to choose, I would take EA over MS anyday. The last thing we need is for Take Two's multiplatform development teams to be forced to go 360-only and for them to abandon the developers that don't fit in with that....and worse, for their PC games to suddenly require Vista and GFW Live! and still be horribly optimized regardless.

I don't want to see Take Two get bought out by anyone, but if it did happen I'll take anybody over Microsoft.....at least EA supports games across a wide range of platforms, and at least their PC published games never tries to push Vista and the horrible GFW Live! on people.

Thankfully Take Two rejected EA's offer.....as I hope they reject any future buyout offer from any monopolistic company, whether it be EA or Microsoft.

[QUOTE="rragnaar"]Personally I'd love to see Sony or Microsoft outbid them. They seem to treat their developers a hell of a lot better than EA does. We don't have yearly installments of Halo, Gears, God of War, or Gran Turismo. EA would destroy the Grand Theft Auto series.Robnyc22

I'm not fan of buyouts....but I would take EA over MS anyday.

The last thing we need is for Take Two's multiplatform development teams to be forced to go 360-only and for them to abandon the developers that don't fit in with that....and worse, for their PC games to suddenly require Vista and GFW Live! and still be horribly optimized regardless.

I don't want to see Take Two get bought out by anyone, but if it did happen I'll take anybody over Microsoft.....at least EA supports games across a wide range of platforms, and at least their PC published games never tries to push Vista and the horrible GFW Live! on people.

I guess my concern is that, as EA continues to grow, and especially if they bought Take-Two and owned Grand Theft Auto, it might start to make sense for them to abandon their multiplatform strategy. They've said in the past that a 1 console future is ideal for them, and if they had Bioware, Pandemic, Rockstar, EA sports, all of the talent from the 2K teams, the Bioshock IP, and god knows what else, they might decide to launch a console... and that is someting I wouldn't tolerate. I suppose I'm looking at it from a very extreme 'tinfoil hat conspiracy' angle, but I don't want EA to be any bigger than they already are.

EA seems to be drinking to much of its own collective Kool-Aid attempting to lowball Take-Two like that.MarcusAntonius

No kidding, EA just dished out $1 billion for BioWare/Pandemic and now they tried taking over Take-Two for $2 billion...a company that owns some of the biggest, most beloved franchises in gaming history (Grand Theft Auto, Civilization) and an incredible pool of developer talent (Rockstar, Firaxis, Irrational, Illusion, Visual Concepts...). Take-Two would have been crazy to accept.

EA seems to be drinking to much of its own collective Kool-Aid attempting to lowball Take-Two like that. It was a smart business move for EA, but horrible execution. GTA IV would have made up for any financial blow EA would have sustained.MarcusAntonius

Yeah well good to hell WITH EA I have enough of them.

I guess my concern is that, as EA continues to grow, and especially if they bought Take-Two and owned Grand Theft Auto, it might start to make sense for them to abandon their multiplatform strategy. They've said in the past that a 1 console future is ideal for them, and if they had Bioware, Pandemic, Rockstar, EA sports, all of the talent from the 2K teams, the Bioshock IP, and god knows what else, they might decide to launch a console... and that is someting I wouldn't tolerate. I suppose I'm looking at it from a very extreme 'tinfoil hat conspiracy' angle, but I don't want EA to be any bigger than they already are.

rragnaar

EA's bread and butter is in multiplatform publishing. Launching a Console just wouldn't be as cost-effective for them and I doubt it would give them as much profit as they currently recieve from publishing games across many different platforms.

And regardless....that still wouldn't remove competition from the other console manufacturers.

You can buy and own companies, but they can't own people and talent and creative.....EA has learned this lesson in the past.

As I said, I'm no fan of buyouts at all....but I hate when people act like an EA buyout is the worst thing that can happen, then turn around and act like a better alternative would be a buyout from a company like MS, which has proven to be even more of a monopoly and who has poorly handled the direction of previously great franchises, such as Shadowrun, and where a developer like Rare certainly hasn't delivered the same quality under MS as they did under Nintendo.

[QUOTE="Robnyc22"]

[QUOTE="rragnaar"]Personally I'd love to see Sony or Microsoft outbid them. They seem to treat their developers a hell of a lot better than EA does. We don't have yearly installments of Halo, Gears, God of War, or Gran Turismo. EA would destroy the Grand Theft Auto series.rragnaar

I'm not fan of buyouts....but I would take EA over MS anyday.

The last thing we need is for Take Two's multiplatform development teams to be forced to go 360-only and for them to abandon the developers that don't fit in with that....and worse, for their PC games to suddenly require Vista and GFW Live! and still be horribly optimized regardless.

I don't want to see Take Two get bought out by anyone, but if it did happen I'll take anybody over Microsoft.....at least EA supports games across a wide range of platforms, and at least their PC published games never tries to push Vista and the horrible GFW Live! on people.

I guess my concern is that, as EA continues to grow, and especially if they bought Take-Two and owned Grand Theft Auto, it might start to make sense for them to abandon their multiplatform strategy. They've said in the past that a 1 console future is ideal for them, and if they had Bioware, Pandemic, Rockstar, EA sports, all of the talent from the 2K teams, the Bioshock IP, and god knows what else, they might decide to launch a console... and that is someting I wouldn't tolerate. I suppose I'm looking at it from a very extreme 'tinfoil hat conspiracy' angle, but I don't want EA to be any bigger than they already are.

Rag, a one console future is ideal for everybody. Its not about ONE company pwning console gaming, its about a standard console so everyone's games are playable on whatever system you have, and any company can make one, similar to a DVD player. Its not about EA making their own console, and they're not the only ones who have said they want it. Everyone from Insomniac to Silicon Knights have said the same things.

It would be nice only needing one system under my TV, and not having to spend over $1200 to have 3 different consoles. And not being forced to buy one that says Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo on it. It would basically be a whole lot like the choice you have between different PC's, just in console form with standardised specs.

I don't understand how you can say its not okay for EA to buyout because of this and the fact that they're a huge company, but then say you'd like MS to buy Rockstar, who are the biggest company on the planet.

[QUOTE="rragnaar"][QUOTE="Robnyc22"]

[QUOTE="rragnaar"]Personally I'd love to see Sony or Microsoft outbid them. They seem to treat their developers a hell of a lot better than EA does. We don't have yearly installments of Halo, Gears, God of War, or Gran Turismo. EA would destroy the Grand Theft Auto series.EdgecrusherAza

I'm not fan of buyouts....but I would take EA over MS anyday.

The last thing we need is for Take Two's multiplatform development teams to be forced to go 360-only and for them to abandon the developers that don't fit in with that....and worse, for their PC games to suddenly require Vista and GFW Live! and still be horribly optimized regardless.

I don't want to see Take Two get bought out by anyone, but if it did happen I'll take anybody over Microsoft.....at least EA supports games across a wide range of platforms, and at least their PC published games never tries to push Vista and the horrible GFW Live! on people.

I guess my concern is that, as EA continues to grow, and especially if they bought Take-Two and owned Grand Theft Auto, it might start to make sense for them to abandon their multiplatform strategy. They've said in the past that a 1 console future is ideal for them, and if they had Bioware, Pandemic, Rockstar, EA sports, all of the talent from the 2K teams, the Bioshock IP, and god knows what else, they might decide to launch a console... and that is someting I wouldn't tolerate. I suppose I'm looking at it from a very extreme 'tinfoil hat conspiracy' angle, but I don't want EA to be any bigger than they already are.

Rag, a one console future is ideal for everybody. Its not about ONE company pwning console gaming, its about a standard console so everyone's games are playable on whatever system you have, and any company can make one, similar to a DVD player. Its not about EA making their own console, and they're not the only ones who have said they want it. Everyone from Insomniac to Silicon Knights have said the same things.

It would be nice only needing one system under my TV, and not having to spend over $1200 to have 3 different consoles. And not being forced to buy one that says Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo on it. It would basically be a whole lot like the choice you have between different PC's, just in console form with standardised specs.

I don't understand how you can say its not okay for EA to buyout because of this and the fact that they're a huge company, but then say you'd like MS to buy Rockstar, who are the biggest company on the planet.

I will probably flirt with sounding like a hypocrite on this one. I'm all for a one console future, but I think it has to be approached in a different manner than someone just buying up all the studios and publishers. I agree with you on how a one console future should be handled, and I've said similar things in the past. The best way to have a cheap console that is worth a damn is to have all sorts of consumer electronics companies competing to lower prices, but all making the same peice of tech.

It is ridiculous that we've gotten to a point where we owe our allegiances to a company, or a peice of plastic. (I'm 100% guilty of this) No film fan would be caught saying "I can't wait for the next Sony Pictures release." Or Warner Brothers or whatever.

[QUOTE="rragnaar"][QUOTE="Robnyc22"]

[QUOTE="rragnaar"]Personally I'd love to see Sony or Microsoft outbid them. They seem to treat their developers a hell of a lot better than EA does. We don't have yearly installments of Halo, Gears, God of War, or Gran Turismo. EA would destroy the Grand Theft Auto series.EdgecrusherAza

I'm not fan of buyouts....but I would take EA over MS anyday.

The last thing we need is for Take Two's multiplatform development teams to be forced to go 360-only and for them to abandon the developers that don't fit in with that....and worse, for their PC games to suddenly require Vista and GFW Live! and still be horribly optimized regardless.

I don't want to see Take Two get bought out by anyone, but if it did happen I'll take anybody over Microsoft.....at least EA supports games across a wide range of platforms, and at least their PC published games never tries to push Vista and the horrible GFW Live! on people.

I guess my concern is that, as EA continues to grow, and especially if they bought Take-Two and owned Grand Theft Auto, it might start to make sense for them to abandon their multiplatform strategy. They've said in the past that a 1 console future is ideal for them, and if they had Bioware, Pandemic, Rockstar, EA sports, all of the talent from the 2K teams, the Bioshock IP, and god knows what else, they might decide to launch a console... and that is someting I wouldn't tolerate. I suppose I'm looking at it from a very extreme 'tinfoil hat conspiracy' angle, but I don't want EA to be any bigger than they already are.

Rag, a one console future is ideal for everybody. Its not about ONE company pwning console gaming, its about a standard console so everyone's games are playable on whatever system you have, and any company can make one, similar to a DVD player. Its not about EA making their own console, and they're not the only ones who have said they want it. Everyone from Insomniac to Silicon Knights have said the same things.

It would be nice only needing one system under my TV, and not having to spend over $1200 to have 3 different consoles. And not being forced to buy one that says Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo on it. It would basically be a whole lot like the choice you have between different PC's, just in console form with standardised specs.

I don't understand how you can say its not okay for EA to buyout because of this and the fact that they're a huge company, but then say you'd like MS to buy Rockstar, who are the biggest company on the planet.

In theory yes, but you also can't give that much power to one company. Whatever that company wants to do or charge for, you have to accept it. What if they decided they dont want a powerful machine, or they want to charge 100 a year for online. Realistically, I dont think it is the best option. Two consoles is the way to go, three is a crowd, but its somewhat manigble, short term at least. I think 2 would be ideal.

[QUOTE="EdgecrusherAza"][QUOTE="rragnaar"][QUOTE="Robnyc22"]

[QUOTE="rragnaar"]Personally I'd love to see Sony or Microsoft outbid them. They seem to treat their developers a hell of a lot better than EA does. We don't have yearly installments of Halo, Gears, God of War, or Gran Turismo. EA would destroy the Grand Theft Auto series.F1Lengend

I'm not fan of buyouts....but I would take EA over MS anyday.

The last thing we need is for Take Two's multiplatform development teams to be forced to go 360-only and for them to abandon the developers that don't fit in with that....and worse, for their PC games to suddenly require Vista and GFW Live! and still be horribly optimized regardless.

I don't want to see Take Two get bought out by anyone, but if it did happen I'll take anybody over Microsoft.....at least EA supports games across a wide range of platforms, and at least their PC published games never tries to push Vista and the horrible GFW Live! on people.

I guess my concern is that, as EA continues to grow, and especially if they bought Take-Two and owned Grand Theft Auto, it might start to make sense for them to abandon their multiplatform strategy. They've said in the past that a 1 console future is ideal for them, and if they had Bioware, Pandemic, Rockstar, EA sports, all of the talent from the 2K teams, the Bioshock IP, and god knows what else, they might decide to launch a console... and that is someting I wouldn't tolerate. I suppose I'm looking at it from a very extreme 'tinfoil hat conspiracy' angle, but I don't want EA to be any bigger than they already are.

Rag, a one console future is ideal for everybody. Its not about ONE company pwning console gaming, its about a standard console so everyone's games are playable on whatever system you have, and any company can make one, similar to a DVD player. Its not about EA making their own console, and they're not the only ones who have said they want it. Everyone from Insomniac to Silicon Knights have said the same things.

It would be nice only needing one system under my TV, and not having to spend over $1200 to have 3 different consoles. And not being forced to buy one that says Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo on it. It would basically be a whole lot like the choice you have between different PC's, just in console form with standardised specs.

I don't understand how you can say its not okay for EA to buyout because of this and the fact that they're a huge company, but then say you'd like MS to buy Rockstar, who are the biggest company on the planet.

In theory yes, but you also can't give that much power to one company. Whatever that company wants to do or charge for, you have to accept it. What if they decided they dont want a powerful machine, or they want to charge 100 a year for online. Realistically, I dont think it is the best option. Two consoles is the way to go, three is a crowd, but its somewhat manigble, short term at least. I think 2 would be ideal.

F1 I don't think you understood me. You wouldn't be giving all the power to one company. You'd be taking it away from the big 3 and spreading it out to anybody who wants to make a game machine to sell.

So you'd have companies like Toshiba, Panasonic, Samsung, etc all making console hardware that all do the same basic things and play every game out there. So you'd only have to pick one and you'd be set to play the next Metal Gear, Zelda, Halo, etc. Online could be handled by each individual developer.

F1 I don't think you understood me. You wouldn't be giving all the power to one company. You'd be taking it away from the big 3 and spreading it out to anybody who wants to make a game machine to sell.

So you'd have companies like Toshiba, Panasonic, Samsung, etc all making console hardware that all do the same basic things and play every game out there. So you'd only have to pick one and you'd be set to play the next Metal Gear, Zelda, Halo, etc. Online could be handled by each individual developer.

EdgecrusherAza

It really would be perfect for developers to finally be able to reach everybody that owned a game console... barring the recent format war, I never had to worry about what movie player I had to be able to watch every movie that came out. Games should be the same way. I would even think that the big three could see the benefit of this. They would be instrumental in planning what the hardware would need to be, and they already are in place to be great software distributors.

[QUOTE="EdgecrusherAza"]

F1 I don't think you understood me. You wouldn't be giving all the power to one company. You'd be taking it away from the big 3 and spreading it out to anybody who wants to make a game machine to sell.

So you'd have companies like Toshiba, Panasonic, Samsung, etc all making console hardware that all do the same basic things and play every game out there. So you'd only have to pick one and you'd be set to play the next Metal Gear, Zelda, Halo, etc. Online could be handled by each individual developer.

rragnaar

It really would be perfect for developers to finally be able to reach everybody that owned a game console... barring the recent format war, I never had to worry about what movie player I had to be able to watch every movie that came out. Games should be the same way. I would even think that the big three could see the benefit of this. They would be instrumental in planning what the hardware would need to be, and they already are in place to be great software distributors.

I think such a move would force design by consensus and kill innovation. Stuff like the hard drive, the modem and the compact disk would have taken much longer to arrive if everyone at the table had to agree. It would also take much much longer for new generations of hardware to hit because there would be less incentive to release new hardware.

Also, right now Sony and MS, at least early on, take a loss on hardware figuring that the loss will (eventually) be more than counterbalanced by revenue from software (including licensing fees). That model would end once there were a ton of hardware developers out there (at that point in time hardware makers would start selling hardware for a profit.

Umm... I hate to be a party pooper here, but doesn't this "one" console sound an awful lot like a PC? The only difference is that not every game is on it because the developers choose not to put their games on PC.

Really... I can buy any computer I want, put any game in, and if I meet the requirments, it works. The only way we will get one console is when consoles as we know them cease to exist because the PC market overtakes them.

EA is slowly sucking the soul out of the videogame industry. Huge megacorporations are notorious for their bottom line, and if EA takes over the Bioshock and GTA franchises, we can expect to see a loss of quality control, and a slew of new, passable sequels with minimal improvements to maximize profit margins. EA Sports, anyone?

:lol:

EA built a whole website to pressure Take 2 into the deal.

http://www.eatake2.com/

Lets say this does happen in the future, would that mean 2K sports is done which is about the only other rival to EA in sports. Only EA sports games from now on?

dvader654

Is it me, or do most hardcore gamers have a really low opinion of EA?

Take Two should settle for nothing less then 10 Billion.

Make EA BEG for it on their knees.

As I play mainly sports games and am a die-hard EA Sports fan, I'll be that guy who hopes EA gets this done. Sorry guys, gotta look out for number 1 here. (And I also love GTA, but think EA wouldn't hamper their progress, may further it)

Can you say MVP Baseball 2009??? That would be the best news of the year, next to the Cubs winning the World Series of course.

As I play mainly sports games and am a die-hard EA Sports fan, I'll be that guy who hopes EA gets this done. Sorry guys, gotta look out for number 1 here. (And I also love GTA, but think EA wouldn't hamper their progress, may further it)

Can you say MVP Baseball 2009??? That would be the best news of the year, next to the Cubs winning the World Series of course.

shakazulu5

Yeah MVP Baseball 2009 would be great news but there is a downside to this deal. If this does get done then there wouldn't be any major competition for EA to go against which can only result in low qualities games.

Huge megacorporations are notorious for their bottom line, and if EA takes over the Bioshock and GTA franchises, we can expect to see a loss of quality control, and a slew of new, passable sequels with minimal improvements to maximize profit margins. EA Sports, anyone?

Jbul

Your conjecture aside, is it just large companies that are only concerned with profit?

[QUOTE="shakazulu5"]

As I play mainly sports games and am a die-hard EA Sports fan, I'll be that guy who hopes EA gets this done. Sorry guys, gotta look out for number 1 here. (And I also love GTA, but think EA wouldn't hamper their progress, may further it)

Can you say MVP Baseball 2009??? That would be the best news of the year, next to the Cubs winning the World Series of course.

-DarthMaul-

Yeah MVP Baseball 2009 would be great news but there is a downside to this deal. If this does get done then there wouldn't be any major competition for EA to go against which can only result in low qualities games.