EA Takes Out $1 Billion Loan For Take-Two Acquisition

SEC filings have revealed that Electronic Arts borrowed $1 billion from Morgan Stanley and other lenders to help finance a possible acquisition of Take-Two.

"There's no news here," said EA VP of communications Jeff Brown. "This is just a process point on something we announced in February."

With $2.3 billion on hand in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments, EA already has the funds available to do the deal as it currently stands. With the deal not contingent on financing, why borrow more money?

"It helps us maintain maximum flexibility for any opportunities," said Brown.

Take-Two had no comment as of press time.

Did LucasArts Just Bolt From The ESA, Too?

The Entertainment Software Association confirmed late last week that two of its members—Activision and Vivendi Games—were no longer with organization, after they decided to "discontinue their membership." The pair were just two of the publishers who opted to bail on E3 this year, showing potential signs of discontent with the ESA and its annual show. They may not be the only ones.

Today, it would appear that another publisher may be joining Activision and Vivendi as a former ESA member, as GamePolitics points out that LucasArts is no longer listed as one of its members, a recent and unannounced change. The official E3 Summit web site still lists LucasArts as a participating company. We have a request in with the publisher to learn more about their ESA status and will update when we hear back.

ESA Members

Rockstar Patches GTA IV's PS3 Online Play

Rockstar Games just confirmed that they have released a patch for the Playstation 3 version of GTA IV which was causing issues with online play.

Rockstar Games has released a GTA IV patch for Playstation 3 today that prevents Gamespy’s servers from being overloaded and therefore reduces the impact on those servers that were causing the game to stutter and lock up. We continue to monitor the performance of the game both on and offline and will provide further updates as necessary. We want to assure everyone that, together with our hardware partners, we continue to strive to give our fans the best possible interactive entertainment experiences possible. This update will ensure that everyone will experience Grand Theft Auto IV the way it was intended. We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused.

Looks like Microsoft's prep work for the game mostly paid off.

Take-Two Sues CTA Over Yanked GTA IV Ads

Take-Two isn't impressed with the Chicago Transit Authority's ability to crumble in the face of near-controversy, as it has filed suit against the CTA and ad provider Titan Outdoor for pulling Grand Theft Auto IV bus ads prior to the game's release. Those ads—bus billboards and station posters—were quickly yanked after a local Fox News affiliate wondered across the airwaves why the CTA was displaying paid for advertising for the Rockstar title.

We can only assume, based on the Reuters report, that Take-Two is also curious about the particulars involved in the removal of the $300,000 advertising program. The publisher filed the suit in a Manhattan court, claiming the CTA's actions violated "its free speech and contractual rights," officially.

The Fox News report that appears to take credit for the removal of the ads can still be seen online, for those looking for masochistic punishment delivered in the brain dead local news fashion.

"Grand Theft Auto" publisher sues over pulled ads [Reuters]

Five Publishers Drop Out of E3 This Year, Some Blame ESA President

By: Brian Crecente and Leigh Alexander

Rumored developer displeasure with Entertainment Software Association president Mike Gallagher may be partially to blame for nearly half a dozen member publishers dropping out of this year's E3 conference, Kotaku has learned.

This morning we broke the news that not only are Vivendi and Activision not attending this year's E3 they've both decided to drop out of the association all together. We've since learned that NCSoft, Her Interactive and id Software have all decided not to attend this year's show, though they are all remaining members of the association.

Only NCSoft had returned calls about the decision as of press time, saying that their decision to not attend E3 this year, the first time they won't in the company's history, was due to the development cycle of their games and in no way reflects on the ESA or it's leadership.

But several industry sources who wish to remain anonymous say Gallagher is in part to blame for issues surrounding this year's E3.

ESA Confirms Activision/Vivendi Departure

The Entertainment Software Association told Kotaku today that both Activision and Vivendi are no longer a part of the industry trade organization, confirming a rumor we broke earlier this morning.

"While the Entertainment Software Association remains the preeminent voice for U.S. computer and video game publishers, we can confirm that Activision and Vivendi Games opted to discontinue their membership. The ESA remains dedicated to advancing our industry's objectives such as protecting intellectual property, preserving First Amendment rights, and fostering a beneficial environment for the entire industry. Our high level of service and value to members and the larger industry remains unchanged."

- Rich Taylor, Senior Vice President of Communications and Research, Entertainment Software Association

This comes a day after it was noted that Activision and a number of other notable publishers were not listed as showing at the industry's big conference.

Neither Activision nor Vivendi have responded to requests for comment. More as this breaking story unfolds.

Activision and Vivendi Break From ESA

Yesterday word broke that Activision was one of what might be several companies not attending this year's E3 Media and Business Summit. Today I've heard that neither Activision nor Vivendi will be attending the annual conference and are in fact no longer members of the association.

We have contacted the ESA, Activison and Vivendi for comment and will update the second we hear back.

In 2006 the association announced they would be reworking the annual E3 conference after publishers complained about the expense and focus of the event. Last year it was reworked and made smaller, cutting down on the number of press and publishers allowed to attend and held in Santa Monica rather than Los Angeles. This year the event is moving back to the LA convention center but keeping the smaller, more intimate format.

Canadian Playstation 3 gamers are getting a price drop on Playstation Network downloadable content by tomorrow due to the strengthening Canadian dollar, Sony Computer Entertainment of America said today.

"We are continually looking for ways to enhance the player experience on the PLAYSTATION®Network, and downloadable content through the PLAYSTATION Store is just one of our areas of focus," said Grace Chen, Senior Manager for the PLAYSTATION Store. “We anticipate that this price adjustment will meet the expectations of our Canadian consumers and provide them with a better PLAYSTATION Network experience."

German Govnt Approves Possible Take-Two Aquisition

In a late afternoon filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission today, Electronic Arts reports that the German Federal Cartel Office has OKed the planned acquisition of Take-Two by EA.

“In addition to our filing under the HSR Act with the DOJ and FTC, on March 25, 2008, Purchaser made a pre-merger filing with the German competition authorities. On April 24, 2008, Purchaser was notified by the German Federal Cartel Office that the proposed transaction had been cleared.”

It's great.

At around 11:50am Greenwich Mean Time, the PAL version of Grand Theft Auto IV for the Xbox 360 was ripped and leaked to various torrent sites by a ground called iCON. This would of course enable burning a copy for the home console. Meanwhile, the NTSC version is expected within the next 48 hours. YouTube clips have been popping up online of the game's opening and early missions — but as of posting, many of the clips have been taken down. The retail release is a mere six days away. This isn't the first GTA game leaked as San Andreas was as well. And it was leaked a week before, too.

We haven't verified whether the 6.32 GB file really is the full game, but there are plenty of listings on torrent sites now and we contacted Rockstar for comment.

Metal Gear Solid 4 violent? Let's hear what the British Board of Film Classification says:

METAL GEAR SOLID 4 is a third person tactical/stealth game. The player takes on the role of an aging soldier, Snake who can be armed with knives, guns and grenades. The game has been classified '15' for strong violence.

During battles enemy soldiers die with small puffs of blood. The weaponry includes petrol bombs, however there is no detailed portrayal of injuries. During cut scenes slightly more detailed violence is portrayed, such as enemy creatures spearing friendly soldiers and one protracted fist fight.

We understand that we are asking PS3 and prospective PS3 users to wait a bit longer, but we have come to the conclusion that we need more time to refine the service to ensure a more focused gaming entertainment experience than what it is today. Our overarching objective is to provide users with new gaming experiences that are available only on PLAYSTATION Home. Spending more time on the development and on the Closed Beta testing reaffirms our commitment to bringing a quality service, maintaining the PlayStation tradition.

GameStop President Steve Morgan Resigns

After 7 productive years with GameStop, Steve Morgan has made the decision to reapply his energy and drive outside out GameStop Steve will officially be leaving the company on May 2nd 2008. Steve has stated from the very first day we discussed his position with our merged company that his goal was to head up a company as a CEO. After two and half very successful years as our President he now feels that the time is right to pursue his objective.

Launching on May 19 in the US, Wii Fit will retail for US $89.99. With the crappy dollar exchange rate, that's about the same as it costs in Japan, where it's priced at ¥8,800. There's more! The first 1,000 folks in the New York City area who pre-order Wii Fit with a $5 deposit at the Nintendo World store in Rockefeller Plaza have will get a limited edition Wii Fit with a reproduced Shigeru Miyamoto signature on it. That's right, if you are lucky, you too can wear a fake Miyamoto autograph. Hooray!

Hit the jump for the press release.

PSN Store Makeover Is Live, Broken

While the big Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots news today might seem like the details of the standard and limited editions of the games and their price, the real news seems to be that as of today Konami is planning on selling the Limited Edition version of the game only through GameStop.

That's right, no Wal-Mart, no Target, no Best Buy, no GameCrazy.

This backs up tips we received late last week that GameCrazy stores have been canceling their limited edition MGS preorders.

While the release is pretty straight forward about this, saying the game will only be available in North America on June 12 through GameStop, I actually called to verify and was told that as of right now they have no plans on selling it anywhere else.. in North America. ever.

The release does also detail that the standard edition of Metal Gear Solid 4 will sell for $60, while the Limited Edition, which includes exclusive artwork by Yoji Shinkawa and a bevy of other goodies, will sell for $85, Konami announced today. Both go on sale on June 12.

Konami also announced their pre-order program, which will give customers who pre-order the game at select stories a copy of the Metal Gear Saga Vol. 2 DVD while supplies last.

"As the most anticipated game to be released for the PLAYSTATION®3 system this year, we wanted to make sure that no fan of Metal Gear Solid would be disappointed with the amount of content and gameplay at their disposal," said Anthony Crouts, Vice President of Marketing for Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc.

Hit the jump for the break down of each version: