Rumor: Microsoft Bidding for Take-Two

During the whole Take-Two/EA brouhaha, the former has claimed that there are other suitors than EA who would like to make franchises such as BioShock and Grand Theft Auto their own, and rumors have once more resurfaced that it is Microsoft who is in the hunt:

“I think that Microsoft (MSFT) is a likely bidder for TTWO. Microsoft already makes a video game platform (Xbox and Xbox 360) as well as independently publishes video games. Years ago, the company made a video game acquisition when it bought tiny Bungie studios, the company that developed the Halo series. Microsoft had already published the Halo games, but the company decided to bring the production in-house to reap the benefits of vertical integration. I can’t tell you how many dollars Microsoft has made, but Halo has now produced three bestselling games, and its exclusivity on the Xbox (it’s also available on the PC, but no other console) has driven console sales too.

Besides Halo, Grand Theft Auto, TTWO’s signature game, is the other dynasty of the video game universe. GTA IV, the most recent addition, released earlier this year, broke sales records that were set by Halo 3 last year.” –Stephen Frankola, Seeking Alpha

But then, Shane Kim debunked this one himself last year, with an argument that’s actually quite difficult to crack:

“Me? I highly doubt it. Last year, similar rumors swirled that Microsoft was bidding to buy Take-Two. However, Shane Kim swatted down the rumor, with a fairly obvious reason why the acquisition would never happen. Kim said in March 2007 that Microsoft ‘could never launch an acquisition bid at a third party publisher,’ because of Take-Two’s ‘platform agnostic’ approach. Essentially, Microsoft would be paying a huge sum of money (in this case, $2.5 billion) and not seeing the revenue streams from Take-Two’s PS3, Wii, DS and PSP business because Take-Two would become a Microsoft exclusive company.

Short and long of it–this probably isn’t happening.” –Art Green, Endsights

When it’s put like that, I find myself in doubt as well, unless Microsoft simply did it to hurt the competition. Plus, Grand Theft Auto and BioShock still did pretty well when they were platform exclusive, so I doubt that would hurt Microsoft’s feelings.