Our extensive research on this controversial acquisition is seeing even more surprises. Take-Two's stock has jumped a whooping 47%. Last Friday shares were worth $17.36. But now after the 'EA buying Take2 weekend' shares are now worth $25.75. Hopefully, stocks will say high and EA won't be able to buy out all of Take-Two's stocks.

via Kotaku

Take-Two has announced changes to it's executive structure. Ben Fender, acting CEO and a Board member of Take-Two since March 2007, is now the CEO of Take-Two until October 31, 2012. Ben Fender replaced former CEO Paul Eibeler at the annual Take-Two meeting on March 29, 2007. In addition to the CEO appointment, Karl Slatoff has been named Executive Vice President, with responsibilities in the areas of general management, administration, and corporate development. Mr. Fender and Mr. Slatoff are both from ZelnickMedia, a company founded by Strauss Zelnick. Strauss Zelnick is currently serving as non-executive chairman of Take-Two and is a member of the company's board. 

Press Release: Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. Announces Executive Appointments

Gamasutra is reporting that things are starting to look a little better for Take-Two.  With higher retail prices and fewer licensed properties, the forecast for Take-Two's financial situation is looking better.  They have been decreasing there sports licenses , and far fewer non sports licensed games.  Check out the full article below.

"Cowan analyst Doug Creutz has taken an extensive look at Take-Two's forthcoming year, noting that despite investor shakiness, he believes the publisher has a good chance at achieving its 35 percent gross margin target as it moves to more internally developed games and fewer licensed properties.

Creutz said the margin target should be hit despite internal development and royalty cost increases over the next fiscal year, primarily because of four key reasons.

The first is that the company has been moving from low-margin distribution revenues to higher-margin publishing revenues, as well as finding lower publishing costs as a percent of revenue because of higher retail prices on Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii games.

The latter, says Creutz, will also be helped by "volume discounts on hardware royalties driven by GTA IV and other hit titles." Take-Two also currently has one externally developed game on its fiscal 2008 schedule, Borderlands, which he says will significantly decrease royalty and development costs.

Finally, Creutz says its bottom line will be helped by both a slight decrease in its sports licenses, and far fewer non sports licensed games.

"The most significant portion of Take-Two's licensing costs is its exclusive contract with Major League Baseball," he explains. "This is evident from the jump in licensing costs from $6.3MM in FY05 (the last year of the non-exclusive contract) to $52.8MM in FY06 (the first year of the exclusive contract)."

While none of those deals are changing in fiscal 2008, the company's former reliance on licensed titles like Fantastic Four 2 and Ghost Rider has fallen by the wayside. Creutz concludes that "non-sports license costs to decline since the company has no significant licensed television or movie properties this year (the company is publishing games based on Nickelodeon's Dora and Diego properties, but we think the license costs for those titles will be very minor)."

With all the recent talk of Take-Two being bought out by EA, nobody saw this coming, atleast I didn't.  Check out what GamaSutra is reporting:

"Officials from publisher Take-Two Interactive have announced that the company has acquired Czech based developer Illusion Softworks, best known for the Hidden & Dangerous and Mafia franchises.

The developer, which will be renamed as 2K Czech, is already working on Mafia II for Take-Two. Established in 1997, Illusion Softworks has two studios in Brno and Prague in the Czech Republic, with a total of around 200 employees.

The two Hidden & Dangerous titles and the first Vietcong were published by Gathering of Developers, which was subsequently acquired by Take-Two. Since then both developer and publisher have continued to work closely, with 2K Czech CEO Petr Vochozka commenting: “We have an excellent working relationship with 2K Games and the utmost respect for them. We are pleased to become a 2K studio and are confident that this new partnership will strengthen our current and future projects”.

"The acquisition of Illusion Softworks reflects our strategic focus on owning high-value intellectual property as we continue to expand our portfolio of triple-A titles," said Ben Feder, CEO of Take-Two.

Christoph Hartmann, president of 2K, said: "Adding 2K Czech to our network of development studios demonstrates our strong commitment to creating great franchises and building world-class creative teams. The 2K Czech team is responsible for several very innovative and highly-regarded franchises and we look forward to continuing to develop new and existing IP together."

 

This is great news for all of us who don't want to see Take-Two get bought out, but doesn't mean that the acquisition still can't take place.  Keep your fingers crossed.

The video game stock the analyst is most bearish on is Take-Two Interactive Software, home of the "Grand Theft Auto" franchise. The latest game in that franchise, though, will be released shortly and has missed the holiday season.

Take-Two shares advanced 23.2% last month, but Pachter said the gain is partially attributed to "unwarranted" speculation that the company is a takeover target. The analyst has a "sell" rating and $12 target on shares, which traded at $18.45 on Monday.

Yes I am aware of the fact the "some guy" is infact an analyst, but in all honestly, anyone can be called an analyst. If I predicted that GTA IV would sell over one million copies in it's first week, would I be calling myself an analyst? No.

Oh yeah, the news; Mike Hickey (Analyst) has told GameDaily that he remains:

...convinced [Take-Two] will eventually be acquired at a meaningful premium to their current share price," despite the publishers "checkered corporate profile.

The Company owns a large stable of owned and internally developed IP franchises including GTA, BioShock, Midnight Club, Civilization, Bully, Red Dead Revolver, Manhunt, Carnival Games and Max Payne. The recent acquisition of Activision by Vivendi and BioWare Pandemic by Electronic Arts are clear examples of owned IP value recognition, in our view. ... Despite the Company's often clumsy sequential operating performance, the strength of their game portfolio could provide an acquirer a significant growth engine with several un-priced ancillary opportunities like a GTA massive multiplayer (MMO),"

A GTA MMO you say? Now that would be something. Mike Hickey also continued to talk about how the Grand Theft Auto franchise will contribute over $362.5 million to their fiscal '08 sales. A very probable statement.

Take-Two's T2 brand is growing and growing, the games and the innovation alone is amazing. With studios already in Asia, Europe, Australia, North America, and 2K Boston, this is the 6th 2K studio to open. 2K President, Christoph Hartmann had this to say:

"We’re focused on continuing to bring new brands and cutting-edge game play to market with the creation of the 2K Marin studio. 2K Marin will build upon our success in creating and leveraging AAA franchises."

Take-Two is most well-known for Rockstar Games. So it is a pleasure to see more studios making a name for themselves and making Take-Two more known for innovation, ideas and different game play genres rather then just "that Rockstar Games parent". With Bioshock rumored to have a sequel soon, and Children's games becoming a BIG thing to Take-Two, who knows where this will go. It can however, only go up.

Today Take2 released their results for the fourth quarter and fiscal 2007. Not much to talk about from the press release. GTAIV episodic Content, Bully: Scholarship Edition, and Midnight Club: Los Angles are still on track for a 2008 release. The conference call they held though revealed lots of new information and plans for the future. I have summed up the parts about or relating to Rockstar. I may listen to the conference again just to make sure I got everything.

1. More epicsodic content for GTAIV in 2009 for the 360. Sorry PS3 owners, it seems this is Xbox 360 exclusive too as they only mentioned the 360 specifically.
2. Sequels to Rockstar's "triple A" brands in 2009. More than likely RDR 2 is one of them since we have a concept trailer from 2005.
3. GTAIV Will have a healthy marketing budget and will be robust.
4. Take2 Will not "burn out" series with annual releases.
5. Still no firm date for GTAIV.
6. No GTA for Wii.

Source: Take2

A sign that Rockstar does not want to re-sign the contract with Take-Two possibly, today Chief Operating Officer of Rockstar left to go to Take-Two as Executive Vice President. He had only been COO of Rockstar Games for 11 months, and he leaves after a year of hard work and no doubt, good times. I'm sure it's not the last we will hear of Gary Dale, if anything it's the start of something new and exciting with lots of new opertunity to impress us all. Again.

Take-Two had this to say about Mr. Dale:

"Gary's depth of experience in the interactive entertainment industry and his long-time association with our Company make him an excellent choice to take on this new corporate Executive VP position," said Ben Feder, Chief Executive Officer of Take-Two. "As part of our emphasis on driving profitable growth, we are asking Gary to spearhead our efforts to explore opportunities in emerging areas such as online gaming and casual games, and in promising regions such as Asia/Pacific and Latin America, while also helping to enhance the performance of our sales organization. As corporate liaison to our Rockstar, 2K Games, 2K Sports and 2K Play labels, Gary also will use his expertise to ensure that we take a coordinated approach to building and growing our businesses."

MCVUK also added this in there report:

"Dale will be chiefly looking at the publisher’s sales and distribution activities, and is said to be pursuing further ‘business development opportunities’ for the company, chiefly by liaising with all of Take 2’s publishing labels, of which Rockstar is one. He will also be tasked with exploring the opportunities in emerging markets such as online and casual gaming."

Online and casual gaming? I hear people gossoping already...

Thanks... MCVUK.com for image and quote. Full press release by Take-Two here.