EA ‘not desperate’ to acquire Take Two, deadline ticking down

EA vehemently stated that it was “not desperate” to acquire Take Two Interactive. The latest deadline given to the Grand Theft Auto creators was due to expire this May 16 with still no response from the company. Jeff Brown, EA VP of corporate communications, had a few choice words regarding the initiative to acquire Take Two. Find out what he had to say in our full article after the jump.

Time is slowly running out for Take-Two Interactive as the latest deadline from Electronic Arts regarding its US$ 2 billion bid to buy out the company is due to expire on May 16. EA Vice President of corporate communications Jeff Brown tried pouring on the pressure by saying: “We’re not desperate and there’s a clock”.

Brown claimed that the delay of Take Two to accept any deals was merely a way to hike up these bid, considering the massive success of the recently released Grand Theft Auto 4 (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3). EA made its initial move last February 24 and has received nothing so far from its push to acquire the company.

He further expounded on his initial statement with this explanation:

Part of our model for making this thing work at USD 2 billion is the assumption that if we can get this done in time to publish their games going into the Christmas holiday in ’08 – because EA has an unchallenged publishing capability around the world – we could without question sell more units of those games than they could if they were on their own.

While Brown still expected the pursuit to continue, he mentioned that it will be a “50/50 proposition” at best. He believed that the addition of the Take Two team into the EA family would be a good combination, considering their creative prowess in making games.

In the end, he mentioned that “we just don’t need it [Take Two]” and that EA is still in the business of creating more games with a three year plan of explosive growth all the way into its fiscal year of 2011.

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