Rumor: Activision interested in acquiring Take-Two Interactive

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A new rumor from analyst Mike Hickey is stating that Activision Publishing is interested in acquiring Take-Two Interactive, the publishers behind games such as Grand Theft Auto series.

Take Two’s stock today saw a dramatic increase following the note. Hickey noted that there’s an “emerging romance” between Activision and Take-Two recently. Apparently, Take-Two and Activision are interested on making a movie studio together based upon their popular game series.

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“For Activision, acquiring Take-Two Interactive would be a no-brainer, in our view, circling some of the strongest development talent and owned IP in the world, within a company that has nearly $1 billion in cash and trades at a comparably lower multiple,” Hickey said.

Take-Two admires Activision’s “deep connections to Hollywood” and its capabilities in making massively multiplayer online games, such as “World of Warcraft” and “Diablo.”


The two publishers could become a gaming giant, and could help Activision enter the movie industry with some of Take Two’s series. Another big thing that would come out of a possible acquisition is that Activision would become the owner of some of the biggest developers in the world. Currently, Activision has the Call of Duty team under it’s roof, and Bungie. With this possible acquisition, Activision would then own Rockstar Games as well.

“With the acquisition of Take-Two Interactive, Activision would have arguably the three strongest development studios in the world with Rockstar Games, Bungie and Blizzard,” Hickey said.


Previously, EA made a bid for Take-Two, but Take-Two turned them down. Activision would have to have a strong proposal to Take Two on an take over matter.

The investor also noted that Activision could use Take Two titles to balance out their “annualization” of franchises.

“The opportunity for Activision to intelligently layer future releases from Rockstar, Bungie and Blizzard, could in-part enable Activision to annualize future performance from what today is arguably a less linear performance profile.”

“We would also note that Activision’s mega performance foundation with World of Warcraft is trapped within a life cycle decline, their Skylanders franchise will face considerable pressure from Disney and Call of Duty is vulnerable to franchise fatigue from consistent annual iterations. Therefore, acquiring GTA, Red Dead, Borderlands (now owned, partnership deal that would likely transfer…), NBA 2K, BioShock… etc. Along with the potential performance opportunity from a new MMO and movie adoption of GTA from Rockstar Games… Acquiring Take-Two Interactive would seem like a very smart move for Activision.”


All of this is just a rumor for right now, and nothing official has been stated.



Posted:
Related Forum: Grand Theft Auto Forum

Source: http://www.charlieintel.com/2014/08/29/rumor-activision-interested-in-acquiring-take-two-interactive/

Comments

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FluffyisEpikPosted:

Game Publishers do affect game development. Think about this way if a Publisher doesn't like what he sees in a game they will say "Hey change this/that because it looks unattracting". Basically what I am saying is that Publishers do have a say in development because its them who will be Publishing the game and selling it.

-CorgiPosted:

prestonneil
Hollywood_Undead
Italian Lol at the comments. Activision, the "PUBLISHER" has nothing to do with the creation on the game. All they have to do with the games are marketing them, and PUBLISHING them (just like a publisher for books).

Activision hires studios to make the games. And with Activision taking in Take-Two would mean they have access to better studios.


YES YES YES!
Finally someone that's not an idiot like the rest of the people here complaining!

Its activitons calls for everything if a developer wants to do something it runs through them and activition can do what ever changes it wants. Bf4 wasnt the developers fault they even told activition they needed more time. Guess what? Nope. And cod every year is activitions call


Activision doesn't publish BF games you moron. EA is who forced DICE to release BF4 early. And they don't make all the calls. The developers get a certain date to make the game by. They then create their game, they take it to the publisher, the publisher decides of it needs to be better or not, or to make changes of they think it needs them.

Slade_WilsonPosted:

NOOOO! They would run games like NBA 2K and WWE 2K into the ground.

FluffyisEpikPosted:

Hollywood_Undead To all you idiots:
Activision is a PUBLISHER
NOT A DEVELOPER.


Get your facts straight before you judge a good publisher by their crappy developers.


Basically the publisher calls the shots and says what goes and what doesn't. I think people are just afraid that they will turn GTA into Call of Duty releasing it annually.

YinPosted:

LOL, while I am happy that Activision's business is thriving, I'm not sure if taking a big number of the top game studios would be the best for the game industry. I do find this funny though. It's like that one game series that doesn't feel right without its publisher. I wonder what type of impact that would have on Rockstar.

prestonneilPosted:

Hollywood_Undead
Italian Lol at the comments. Activision, the "PUBLISHER" has nothing to do with the creation on the game. All they have to do with the games are marketing them, and PUBLISHING them (just like a publisher for books).

Activision hires studios to make the games. And with Activision taking in Take-Two would mean they have access to better studios.


YES YES YES!
Finally someone that's not an idiot like the rest of the people here complaining!

Its activitons calls for everything if a developer wants to do something it runs through them and activition can do what ever changes it wants. Bf4 wasnt the developers fault they even told activition they needed more time. Guess what? Nope. And cod every year is activitions call

XBL-ABPosted:

To all you idiots:
Activision is a PUBLISHER
NOT A DEVELOPER.


Get your facts straight before you judge a good publisher by their crappy developers.

XBL-ABPosted:

Italian Lol at the comments. Activision, the "PUBLISHER" has nothing to do with the creation on the game. All they have to do with the games are marketing them, and PUBLISHING them (just like a publisher for books).

Activision hires studios to make the games. And with Activision taking in Take-Two would mean they have access to better studios.


YES YES YES!
Finally someone that's not an idiot like the rest of the people here complaining!

ItalianPosted:

Lol at the comments. Activision, the "PUBLISHER" has nothing to do with the creation on the game. All they have to do with the games are marketing them, and PUBLISHING them (just like a publisher for books).

Activision hires studios to make the games. And with Activision taking in Take-Two would mean they have access to better studios.

AchePosted:

vWatsonc I hope this doesn't happen because the activision has been on a downfall since BO2


Completely agree with you... If this goes through I don't know that i'll even want to play gta now. ._.