Is now the time for either Sony or Microsoft to buy Take-Two?

S

sonycowboy

Member
The market cap is currently 1.51B, which is damn pricy just to get GTA.

But consider the following:

1) If GTA:SA hits 25 million, that will be upwards of $1 billion retail dollars by itself, and what will the next one hit?

2) They've actually got a hell of distribution company, Jack of All games that contributes like 30% to earnings, which they could certainly use for their games and be distributors for some of the smaller publishers.

3) Take-Two now, reportedly, will have an option to buy Visual Concepts and take over the ESPN franchise. So you get a hell of a sports lineup to boot.

4) How incredibly important would a GTA exclusive be to either of them next generation? I don't know if you can overstate it.

I'm sure other publishers would probably be pissed, but it could simply too big of a risk to let the "other guy" get it. What do you guys think?
 
I don't think Take-Two would like to be "bought-out" by either one.

Give them some time(and more developer aquisitions) and they could be the next big thing.
 
I would think Take-Two would like to remain independant for as long as possible. They get more creativity than they would under a company like Sony or MS. And with all the money they are making now, I don't think they need to be brought by anyone.
 
neptunes said:
I don't think Take-Two would like to be "bought-out" by either one.

Give them some time and they could be the next big publisher.
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I'm sure they wouldn't, but the big guys could simply make an offer they can't refuse. Especially in a bidding war.
 
If Take Two gets Visual Concepts, and Visual Concepts continues to expand rather than go through another period of shittiness, then whoever gets Take Two on its good side (or whoever buys the company) will have a significant advantage, second only to Electronic Arts, in my opinion.
 
Society said:
Why not Nintendo?
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GTA on a Nintendo console? You probably have better odds winning the lottery... didn't someone from nintendo say that those types of games will never reach the gamecube? I suppose they could smarten up in time for revolution...
 
snapty00 said:
If Take Two gets Visual Concepts, and Visual Concepts continues to expand rather than go through another period of shittiness, then whoever gets Take Two on its good side (or whoever buys the company) will have a significant advantage, second only to Electronic Arts, in my opinion.
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Agreed, overall, it would be even more important than exclusive Square support. And Take-Two also has the former Rainbow Studios, and the former neo Software Produktions GmbH (Max Payne) development teams.
 
Take Two's not a good buy cause you're essentially only paying for 1 franchise, if it goes south then so does the entire investment, Sony doesn't need Jack of All Games, Globalstar and all their other subsidiaries, if they want Visual Concepts that bad they could just try to go after them directly, just continue paying for exclusivity and keeping an eye on MS is the best choice imo
 
publishers on the whole don't like purchasing other publishers. Just because they already have a publishing system in place, they'd be spending money for something they would most likely kill.
 
It makes no sense to me :)
Take Two isn't in a fantastic situation financially speaking,GTA is their only cash cow and you know how the market is unpredictable,this generation GTA is THE western game,next gen we don't know.
There are just too many franchises once on top and now forgotten.Sony IMO when it comes to market strategies is second to none and having time excusive contracts on the series is the right move.
Only M$ has money to desperatly throw away in buying societies as Rare.....cough cough.....350 millions for 'grabbed by the ghoulies' in a full generation :lol :lol
 
Master Z said:
GTA on a Nintendo console? You probably have better odds winning the lottery... didn't someone from nintendo say that those types of games will never reach the gamecube? I suppose they could smarten up in time for revolution...
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It would be hilarious if they did buy them and they continued to make GTA games and they bombed... you'd really have to lose faith in gamers if that happened.
 
explodet said:
Are the Take Two lawsuits still ongoing?
I doubt anyone would want that baggage.
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What I was going to say. Also, both Nintendo and Microsoft have a corporate image they want to protect.
 
I'm sure Take Two shareholders would love to be bought out, given all the turmoil they've been through in the last couple of years. The company has succeeded in spite of itself.

I don't see MS or Sony as a buyer though, for a lot of reasons. There is just too much crap going on at Take Two for them to be tainted with. Plus the fact that $2 billion is a pretty big gamble to take on a franchise that could flame out at any time. Their other assets are not really worth anything to Sony or MS. Take 2 does have a great distribution operation and a pretty good licensing operation, but Sony and MS have no need for those.
 
Master Z said:
GTA on a Nintendo console? You probably have better odds winning the lottery... didn't someone from nintendo say that those types of games will never reach the gamecube? I suppose they could smarten up in time for revolution...
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"Mario will never shoot hookers".
 
nintendo will buy it and make sure to have the first GTA with a gay character. GTA: Man Andreas. Coming to gamecube in 2005.
 
Gahiggidy said:
What I was going to say. Also, both Nintendo and Microsoft have a corporate image they want to protect.
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Microsoft does? What image is that exactly?

And Nintendo is totally irrelevant to the discussion to begin with.
 
Is it even plausible for Sony to make that kind of investment at this time? I thought they were having a hard time (in the other divisions).
 
WasabiKing said:
They would have to in order to make the acquisition desirable.
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I was saying that Take-Two wouldn't sell off Rockstar as a seperate piece. If you want Rockstar, you have to buy the whole enchilada.

We know that there is going to be consolidation in this industry. So, if Take-Two really wanted to protect themselves, they could work out a merger with another company to make an aquisition based solely on Rockstar infeasible, because right now, I could easily see one of the big guys thinking it's worth it. But again, you'd have to get it by the stockholders, and if a lucrative cash offer were on the table...
 
B E N K E said:
Is it even plausible for Sony to make that kind of investment at this time? I thought they were having a hard time (in the other divisions).
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Actually their gaming division has been one of Sony's worst performing divisions from 6 months ^_^' while all the others are making profits.
 
B E N K E said:
Is it even plausible for Sony to make that kind of investment at this time? I thought they were having a hard time (in the other divisions).
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The MGM aquisition (along with other investors) of 5 Billion dollars show that they'll get the content they need to fulfill their goals of complementary products with content. I think Take-Two fits the bill perfectly. Plus, Take-Two is generating serious income right now, which would become Sony income. That being said, Microsoft has the absolute deepest pockets and if they wanted it, I doubt Sony could stop them.

The only reason I think Sony would want to do this is to stop Microsoft from getting them. Having Halo and GTA exclusive next generation would really go a long way for Microsoft next generation.
 
Elios83 said:
Actually their gaming division has been one of Sony's worst performing divisions from 6 months ^_^' while all the others are making profits.
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:lol

I think you need to be able to distinguish bad performance from spending billions upon billions of dollars to launch two new systems in the next 24 months.

They're 50% ahead of where they were last generation and they completely dominated that one. If their performance is bad, what is Microsoft and Nintendo's?
 
sonycowboy said:
The MGM aquisition (along with other investors) of 5 Billion dollars show that they'll get the content they need to fulfill their goals of complementary products with content. I think Take-Two fits the bill perfectly. Plus, Take-Two is generating serious income right now, which would become Sony income. That being said, Microsoft has the absolute deepest pockets and if they wanted it, I doubt Sony could stop them.

The only reason I think Sony would want to do this is to stop Microsoft from getting them. Having Halo and GTA exclusive next generation would really go a long way for Microsoft next generation.
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A little note: Sony is only putting 300 millions in the MGM affaire,the rest is all by the other societies of the consortium.
 
Elios83 said:
A little note: Sony is only putting 300 millions in the MGM affaire,the rest is all by the other societies of the consortium.
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Yeah. I know. They aren't looking to make a ton of money off MGM. The price is too high to get any significant return on investment. They want to be able to bulk up their library and steer the choice of technology to Blu-Ray. Like I said, complementing their products with their content.
 
The most likely scenario is that Take-Two and Sega Sammy will continue to develop a closer relationship. SEGA's problem is that they have this massive development infrastructure which can put out lots of quality product but poor distribution and retail support for actually selling it. Take-Two's problem is exactly the opposite: the ability to sell but lacking the diversity in development and catalog to take advantage of. As SEGA is appreciating what Take-Two's channels are doing for their sports product, Take-Two is getting the expanded market they've been looking for in ESPN. Both could benefit if Take-Two had a hand in selling SEGA's wider range of content, SEGA would revitalize their North American market presence, and Take-Two could get a better foothold in Japan.
 
Lazy8s said:
The most likely scenario is that Take-Two and Sega Sammy will continue to develop a closer relationship. SEGA's problem is that they have this massive development infrastructure which can put out lots of quality product but poor distribution and retail support for actually selling it. Take-Two's problem is exactly the opposite: the ability to sell but lacking the diversity in development and catalog to take advantage of. As SEGA is appreciating what Take-Two's channels are doing for their sports product, Take-Two is getting the expanded market they've been looking for in ESPN. Both could benefit if Take-Two had a hand in selling SEGA's wider range of content, SEGA would revitalize their North American market presence, and Take-Two could get a better foothold in Japan.
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I don't really understand this theory. Capcom is already publishing GTA in Japan, so Sega can't get a look in.
 
Lazy8s said:
The most likely scenario is that Take-Two and Sega Sammy will continue to develop a closer relationship. SEGA's problem is that they have this massive development infrastructure which can put out lots of quality product but poor distribution and retail support for actually selling it. Take-Two's problem is exactly the opposite: the ability to sell but lacking the diversity in development and catalog to take advantage of. As SEGA is appreciating what Take-Two's channels are doing for their sports product, Take-Two is getting the expanded market they've been looking for in ESPN. Both could benefit if Take-Two had a hand in selling SEGA's wider range of content, SEGA would revitalize their North American market presence, and Take-Two could get a better foothold in Japan.
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Sorry. Sega's already dead. They do have great developers, but their problem isn't distribution.
 
sonycowboy said:
:lol

I think you need to be able to distinguish bad performance from spending billions upon billions of dollars to launch two new systems in the next 24 months.

They're 50% ahead of where they were last generation and they completely dominated that one. If their performance is bad, what is Microsoft and Nintendo's?
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I'm not saying that Sony's gaming division is teh doomed,don't worry :lol Just that it's for 6 months that the gaming division isn't contributing positively to Sony's income.
More over point one a lot of R&D expenses have been transferred to the electronics division and point two companies always dilute the investments in a balanced way over the time in their fiscal reports so that their business isn't strongly affected in a particular period.
Sony's gaming division has been hurt big time recently by falling sales and margins on the PS2.They replied to this with the PStwo and it seems it's working.
 
"I think you need to be able to distinguish bad performance from spending billions upon billions of dollars to launch two new systems in the next 24 months."

that's right - new systems cost billions and billions of dollars to get off the ground.

So they don't become profitable ventures for a long long time. That's why they tend to be 10 year projects.
 
Elios83 said:
Sony's gaming division has been hurt big time recently by falling sales and margins on the PS2.Their replied to this with the PStwo and it seems it's working.
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??

They make little profit on the hardware, so any decline in hardware sales has absolutely no effect on their bottom line. However, they had record software sales for their Q2 versus any other year, so the PS2 business is pretty healthy. They certainly stalled hardware sales with the changeover, which probably cost them a good little bit from a production cost standpoint, but again, from the overall business perspective, it isn't all that much.

Again, I certainly understand that Sony is not producing significant cash over the past two quarters, but they do have over 9 billion in the bank, so they're hardly broke.
 
DCharlie said:
"I think you need to be able to distinguish bad performance from spending billions upon billions of dollars to launch two new systems in the next 24 months."

that's right - new systems cost billions and billions of dollars to get off the ground.

So they don't become profitable ventures for a long long time. That's why they tend to be 10 year projects.
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BeatADeadHorse.gif
 
*** naa, i can't be arsed with this again ***

just post the profit figures since 2000, that's BOUND to prove me wrong again.
 
sonycowboy said:
??

They make little profit on the hardware, so any decline in hardware sales has absolutely no effect on their bottom line. However, they had record software sales for their Q2 versus any other year, so the PS2 business is pretty healthy. They certainly stalled hardware sales with the changeover, which probably cost them a good little bit from a production cost standpoint, but again, from the overall business perspective, it isn't all that much.

Again, I certainly understand that Sony is not producing significant cash over the past two quarters, but they do have over 9 billion in the bank, so they're hardly broke.
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Obviously it affects their bottom line,if their revenues due to low sales and margin on the PS2 have been falling how could they cover all the other expenses they substain on a quarterly basis?In fact they had a loss in Q1 and a break even quarter in Q2.
Bu I'm not saying that the gaming division is doing bad globally speaking,not at all,it's only that at the moment there are other divisions in Sony which are taking the cash in and that's also a good thing for a society that lately has been considered supported only by the gaming division.

PS: 9 bilion is not SCE's personal cash ;)
 
Elios83 said:
Obviously it affects their bottom line,if their revenues due to low sales and margin on the PS2 have been falling how could they cover all the other expenses they substain on a quarterly basis?
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My first guess would be record software sales and royalties.
 
Jonnyram:
I don't really understand this theory. Capcom is already publishing GTA in Japan, so Sega can't get a look in.
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Sega Sammy and Take-Two are already working together. The Japanese GTA deal does not prevent them from expnding upon their relationship.

sonycowboy:
Sorry.
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No reason to be sorry. I'm trying to provide a more reasonable analysis of Take-Two's situation.
Sega's already dead.
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Their operating structure is the same as it's always been. All divisions are still intact.
They do have great developers, but their problem isn't distribution.
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Retail support and distribution is a critical hang-up of every struggling publisher. SEGA's NFL 2K sports brand used to be a million seller and growing back in 2000 and 2001, but that dropped off just as soon as they lost their dedicated shelf space that Dreamcast gave them.
 
GTA on a Nintendo console? You probably have better odds winning the lottery... didn't someone from nintendo say that those types of games will never reach the gamecube? I suppose they could smarten up in time for revolution...
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RE4? In RE4 you get your head sawed off. You set enemies on fire. Blast their head off etc. And in a very realistic graphic setting.
 
Elios83 said:
Of course but it's also clear from the last 6 months results that those weren't sufficient.
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Again, PSP & Cell.

I think we've gone done this road numerous times, so I'll leave it at this. None of us are privy to the exact ins and outs so we'll never truly know beyond what the financial statements tell us. (which was again, PSP & Cell :) )
 
"They make little profit on the hardware, so any decline in hardware sales has absolutely no effect on their bottom line"

okay - so ....
have sony made more than 300 billion yen profit in PS2 software sales alone ?

what i don't understand is how increased software sales and lower hardware sales resulted in a flat quarter....

no matter what your view is on sony, that makes little sense.

PSP / PS3 is now costed to Electronics, so what the hell is eating the profit?

"Again, PSP & Cell."

Cell is supposed to be costing Sony 8 Billion $ , but those costs are not going into game.
 
sonycowboy said:
Again, PSP & Cell.

I think we've gone done this road numerous times, so I'll leave it at this. None of us are privy to the exact ins and outs so we'll never truly know beyond what the financial statements tell us. (which was again, PSP & Cell :) )
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Again,this kind of expenses are commonly diluted by every society in a costant way over the time in their fiscal reports.So even if they're actually having a peak in expenses it results they throw a costant amount of cash in R&D every quarter so that their performance doesn't result affected seriously in a particular period.
It's more simple to say that they also need a good performance on the hardware to be profitable and they lacked this performance in the latest months.
Anyway that beign said I'm much more interested in knowing how the Pstwo did in October :) :D
 
Master Z said:
GTA on a Nintendo console? You probably have better odds winning the lottery... didn't someone from nintendo say that those types of games will never reach the gamecube? I suppose they could smarten up in time for revolution...
Click to expand...
Well, we've already witnessed the release of GTA on GBA. :)

And isn't Sony $61B in debt right now?
 
trippingmartian said:
And isn't Sony $61B in debt right now?
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:lol

no.

DCharlie said:
PSP / PS3 is now costed to Electronics, so what the hell is eating the profit?

Cell is supposed to be costing Sony 8 Billion $, but those costs are not going into game.
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SCEI is getting allocated a portion of the Cell expense, unless you think SCEI is lying on their financials.
 
"SCEI is getting allocated a portion of the Cell expense, unless you think SCEI is lying on their financials."

Really ? can you show me that in the financials because i don't recall seeing it at all?

and what do you think that portion is?
and if that is the case, why would they not declare it in the game section of the financials?

And if you are therefore suggesting that the Cell expense wiped out this Qs profit, what do you think the profit was?

and can you also show me how you come up with sony being 9 billion in surplus - do you mean hard cash? or do you mean they have assets worth 9 billion? Also, why would a company with 9 billion $ in the bank make two bond issues ?

I'm curious especially about the last one - i didn't get time to look at their balance sheet yesterday, so i have no idea if they have 9 billion in cash sitting there yet.
 
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