Electronic Arts Offers $2B For Take Two

quanticle writes "The New York Times is reporting that EA has offered $2B for Take Two Entertainment. The effort appears to be a move to consolidate the two companies before Take Two releases the next iteration of its blockbuster franchise, Grand Theft Auto 4. Take Two has politely declined the offer."

Oh God no....

[Daimanta]

Please don't let EA screw up another good game studio.

Re:Oh God no....

[Thane2600]

Word!!! Westwood studios being the prime example of a game studio run into the ground. And Battlefield 2 is like a supermodel dressed in a paper bag. I just love the ten minutes it takes to get into a BF2 server.

Re:[Whispers] Buy Everything!

[Dunbal]

That's what I thought, way back when all these buyouts and mergers started happening in the 90's. Guess what? The big commercial entities (EA, Sierra, Ubisoft, etc) keep making "sequels" and innovators keep appearing with new stuff that sells well (before getting bought out before version 3, etc).

      I doubt very much we'll only every have the One Big Gaming company - games would suck so much people would eventually stop buying them.

Re:Oh God no....

[rustalot42684]

Or Maxis. The SimCity 4 Rush Hour expansion had a stupid thing where you could unlock buildings by doing "U-Drive it" missions or whatever, and now they've made some shitty "sim city societies" game that's not about building up and cities any more, and EA's to blame. Fucking assholes.

get ready for ...

[cab15625]

GTA 5: Drivers Ed!

GTA 6: Parental Approval!

GTA 7: Sunday Driver!

GTA 8: Horse and Buggy!

Re:Oh God no....

[numbski]

Everyone's focused on GTA. How is everyone overlooking the fact that TT owns Visual Concepts - ie, the 2K Sports franchises? They would eliminate the only real competition they have in that arena, and Madden will continue to be the "best" football game out there.

(ie, the only football game out there)

Re:Oh God no....

[PocketPick]

Given the fact that in the last few months Take Two has been investigated by the SEC, ousted most of it's executives, laid off some of it's staff and has a stock value that is still 1/2 what it was in 2005, I don't think they need EA to screw themselves up.

You say that, but...

[Dutch Gun]

don't we all want more sequels after a sequel to a sequel which used to be an original game 10 years ago

The simple fact of the matter is, that's what consumers seem to actually want. Look at the most anticipated games of 2008 (according to some writer at Yahoo, that is):

http://videogames.yahoo.com/feature/10-most-anticipated-games-of-2008/1177969 [yahoo.com]

Grand Theft Auto 4
Smash Bros. Brawl
Gran Turismo 5 Prologue
Metal Gear Solid 4
Halo Wars
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Fallout 3
Spore
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
Final Fantasy XIII

Of that list, I see only one title based on a 100% new intellectual property: Spore. One guess who is publishing that title...

Irony?

Re:Oh God no....

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

Not to mention that SimCity 4 was basically unplayable without the expansion. You just didn't have the road types needed to handle traffic in high-density cities. It just reeked of your typical EA garbage where they get the game only partially done, sell it, then sell the finished product as an expansion. I won't be buying societies.

Re:You say that, but...

[crhylove]

Well, those are actually good games. For every crappy rehash game I've gotten or tried out via torrent, I've played at least ONE somewhat abysmal original, or a game you've never heard of. It's not that 90% of sequels suck, it's that 90% of all games suck.

Here is my obligatory list of games that still get played, and most of them are NOT new at all, sequel or otherwise:

Mario Kart 64 (still the best)
Mortal Kombat 4 (Great in Emulation), easy controls
Civilization II (still much funner than civ 4)
Urban Terror (this has replaced all other FPS games except:)
Golden Eye 64 (people are ecstatic the second they see it on the big screen in high res).
Super Mario World & All-Stars (SNES)
Super Mario 64
Grand Theft Auto San Andreas
Flatout 2 (we like to hurl bodies through fire)
Ocarina of Time (I got nieces and nephews that LOVE it, it's new to them!)
Tetris (SNES version)
Dr Mario (N64 version)
Bust a Move (SNES version)
Quake 2 Evolved (Sometimes I just put it on because it's pretty)
Smash Brothers (I only have the n64 version, they seem to like it)
Super Metroid
Lego Star Wars (for the littlest guys)

I honestly can't think of another game that gets played around here. I had Stepmania set up at one point, but nobody was that into it long term.

I mean, when you zoom out a couple of decades plenty of GOOD games get completely left out of the mix. Of course, I will be first in line for the new Grand Theft Auto, though....

Re:You say that, but...

[crhylove]

I recommend the now hard to find Mupen++ with the Rice Video plugin 6.1.0.0 and the high res textures off of emutalk.net. There is also a high res plugin that works even better called glide ++ or something like that. If you need further assistance, you can email me: rhy (that little a with the circle) leperkhanz (dot) com

Re:Oh God no....

[vranash]

Actually someone had mentioned it months ago in another article, but EA has been a publisher since the very beginning, most of the games people thought were amazing and innovative were only so because of the small time game companies that either convinces EA to publish them, or were courted by EA because they saw potential.

Maybe that's what needs to happen more nowadays, publishers stick to what they're good at: publishing, and leave the game development to independent studios who then market it to publishers with whatever contract they can mutually agree upon (and this right here is why publishers wouldn't want that...)