How Electronic Arts' Potential Buyout of Take Two Will Change the Gaming Industry's Landscape

For months, Electronic Arts has been trying to acquire Take Two Interactive. The offer is set to be around $2 billion. At that price, the Take Two takeover will be making huge waves across the gaming industry.

For Electronic Arts, the acquisition of Take Two Interactive will be the latest in a long list of buyouts. The recent shopping list for Electronic Arts includes developer DICE, Bioware, Criterion and Pandemic. What is different about this acquisition is that Take Two Interactive is a publisher with many development studios.

The biggest developer of which is Rockstar North, developers of the top selling Grand Theft Auto franchise. The latest game, Grand Theft Auto IV, has already broken sales records with 10 million copies sold in just 4 months. Previous games in the franchise frequently appear on top of sales charts. Without a doubt, Rockstar North is the greatest piece in the acquisition of Take Two Interactive.

Another big piece is the 2K Sports line of sports video games. Previously acquired from Sega, 2K Sports provides the only competition in the gaming industry against the mighty EA Sports. The yearly battles between 2K Sports (College Hoops 2K, NBA 2K, NHL 2K) and EA Sports (NCAA March Madness, NBA Live, NHL 0X) will most likely come to an end if the acquisition is finalized. EA Sports will have a monopoly over sports video games.

The attempted takeover of Take Two Interactive by Electronic Arts could be a response to the recent acquisition activities of rival Activision, which recently overtook Electronic Arts in software market share thanks to ultra popular titles like Guitar Hero and Call of Duty. Activision just recently merged with Vivendi (Starcraft 2, Diablo III, World of Warcraft), forming Activision Blizzard. With Grand Theft Auto and a sports monopoly on their side, Electronic Arts would have the necessary weapons against Activision Blizzard.