Electronic Arts has been extending its $25.74 per share offer to buy Take Two Interactive for several months now but today that offer will finally expire. EA issued a press release today announcing that the current deadline for the offer, which was scheduled to expire late today, will be allowed to expire.However, that isn't the end of the EA-Take Two saga as EA CEO John Riccitiello and Take Two Executive Chairman Strauss Zelnick spoke on the phone on Friday, according to EA's press release. After that the two companies chatted over the weekend with the result being that EA will allow Take Two "to provide a management presentation to EA containing non-public information."
In letters between Riccitiello and Zelnick, it was revealed that EA no longer feels they could intergrate Take Two into their company before the holiday season (where over 50 percent of games are sold). So while the current takeover bid is winding down it's also clear that EA and Take Two could be making some kind of deal in the future.
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Sounds like Take2 wants to show off their secret plans to justify a higher buyout price. Personally, I still keeping my fingers crossed that this doesn't go through. EA has been making great strides towards cleaning up their image and releasing better games. For that I applaud them. But in the end, the more publisher out there, the better it is for the consumer. Competition breads innovation and keeps prices down so I have no reason to want just another large publisher gobbled up further reducing the number of players out there in the game.
...bysmittyPosted at 12:43PM on Aug 18th 2008 by bysmitty