It's probably the surprise story of the week: broke-ass Atari rolling the dice and buying City of Heroes developer Cryptic Studios. Was a little...unexpected.

Equally unexpected, then, is the news today that Atari actually beat somebody to the punch with the deal. And somebody that had money.

Speaking at the UBS Annual Global Media Conference, Ubisoft's CFO Alain Martinez revealed that the French giants were also looking to buy the renowned MMO devs.

We lost one deal which we were a bit mad [about]. We lost Cryptic; it's a US company that was taken by Atari...we were a bit disappointed.

No kidding. Beaten in a bidding war by a company with no money? That's gotta sting. Then again, the less money Ubisoft spent on acquiring Cryptic, the less they'd stand to lose if the whole deal goes pear-shaped for Atari.

Not to be put off by their failure, Martinez says Ubisoft have three other acquisitions in progress, two of them due to be completed in the next few months. Midway, perhaps? If anyone could revive the Mortal Kombat series, it'd be Patrice.

Ubisoft CFO Talks Prince Of Persia, Far Cry 2, Suggests Ratings Overrated [Ubisoft]

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