Wed. June 11th, 2008
Some notes about the world of gaming... EA wants Take Two. UbiSoft is linked with talks with Take Two. Activision is merging with Sierra, and someone said they might also be interested in Take Two. Then there's Atari/Infogrames, who are currently "restructuring" to increase profitability.
Any of those buyers would not affect gamers much, as all of those companies develop for pretty much all platforms evenly (with the occasional exception).
So how about a monkey-wrench? What if.... Microsoft bought Take Two? The implications are pretty severe:
1) MS would have a new Sports division (2K Sports), which it has almost totally lacked (sans racing) since the original XBox.
2) MS would gain the Strategy Masters at Firaxis, who already develop for Windows and Mac. This would allow for 360 and PC exclusive titles for the Strategy Fans (Civ Rev, anyone?)
3) MS would gain Rockstar, and thus would have exclusive access to GTA games. (They already work with the original creator of GTA via the Crackdown game)
4) There are a number of Take Two games/features that are already 360 Exclusive, in some form or another (BioShock, until two weeks ago, was a 360 Exclusive, the GTA4 DLC is 360 exclusive, Rockstar Table Tennis was exclusive for a year, and only appeared on the Wii, and not the PS3... MS seems to be in a good relationship with Nintendo, what with the Viva Piñata and Blue Dragon cross-over titles), and has always pushed what it has called "The Wii60 Effect"
5) It would almost totally cripple Sony's 3rd-Party line-up, as many of Take Two's titles from it's various studios are popular on all systems.
Now the downside: What would be EA's reaction? EA wants 2K Sports, so they can be the only game in town. They want Rockstar for it's sandbox money making (Bully, GTA, Manhunt). They want BioShock, as it looks to be a new FPS Franchise that will do well, AND is becoming a movie. Would EA be willing to pull out from XBox? See below...
What would be Ubi's reaction? Ubi currently has a good relation with MS (Naruto: Rise Of A Ninja is a 360 Exclusive, and Enchanted Arms was a one year exclusive, and the Splinter Cell games have long been associated with XBox more than Playstation. Ubi has no sports division, so losing the potential 2KSports work would hurt. Would they be willing to go PS/Wii only, and risk losing the 360's Splinter Cell sales? This one I doubt... They make too much money with MS.
Activision's reaction would probably be the mildest. They're busy merging already, and probably don't have the time and money to waste on a SECOND acquisition/merger. They would possibly take note, but not much more.
Atari/Infogrames would actually make for an interesting combination if they bought Take Two, as it would reunite Sid Meier with his old company (Sid Meier is the "Main Man" at Firaxis, and co-founded the original MicroProse, which was then bought out by Infogrames). Due to the current "restructuring", I don't see them as a potential buyer/merger, and I don't see them reacting in any way to an MS buy-out.
Back to EA: If MS did somehow buy out Take Two, EA very well may react in the same way they did to the Sega Dreamcast: Completely ignore the platform. Madden, however flawed, *IS* one of the biggest titles in gaming. Even with all of the 2K Sports titles MS would get sole access to, losing Madden would be a massive blow. Short of 2K getting the NFL license back (not likely), this would almost make the deal not worth it on its own.
EA has enough "pull" in the industry, and enough Marquee Titles that if they went PS3-only (or PS3/Wii only), I think it would actually hurt MS quite a bit....
Whether the loss of Madden would outweigh the numerous Exclusive Titles they would receive is debatable, but I just don't think MS wants to risk it. However, Madden 360 has outsold Madden PS3 by a SUBSTANTIAL amount, and according to the Nielsen group (The guys that track how much people use stuff), the 360, though not the most sold, is the most USED console. EA definitely would not want to lose that income.
I don't think MS is actually interested in Take Two. It is an amusing idea, though...
As for Sony... The Playstation division is still not financially successful. They also have not had a history of buying out competition or developers. They prefer to build in-house and work with third parties. They are not likely to be any more interested than Microsoft is, and probably less able financially (Game division vs Game division) to enter a bidding war with MS, let alone EA. Add to that the fact that EA may do the same to Sony as I described above, I don't think Sony is anymore willing to risk Madden than Microsoft would be. Still an amusing idea...
