ea take-two

Take-Two Deems EA's Offer Inadequate Again

Once again Take-Two Interactive has denied the takeover bid from Electronic Arts, stating that the offer of $26 a share is not only inadequate, but also underhanded. Urging stockholders not to sell their stock, Take-Two Chairman Strauss Zelnick explains that the timing just isn't right.

Our Board, after careful review, has unanimously determined that Electronic Arts' offer continues to provide insufficient value and remains opportunistically timed to capture the value of the upcoming Grand Theft Auto IV launch at the expense of our stockholders.

In the long and winding press release that follows, Take-Two outlines plans to explore their financial alternatives after GTA IV is released. Said alternatives include a "business combination" with EA or other third parties that would allow Take-Two to remain independent, or simply selling the company for more money. In short, they want to see what GTA IV does to their value before they sell anything. For the long story, hit the jump. More »

Nice little collection of titles coming out this week. My money is on Professor Layton although Lost Odyssey seems rather intriguing. On the PC side of things, the new episode of Sam and Max is on its way as well as a new version of RPG Maker. What will be taking money out of your wallet this week?

Professor Layton and the Curious Village (DS)

Lost Odyssey (X360)

Conflict: Denied Ops (PC, X360, PS3)

Penumbra: Black Plague (PC)

Jumper (X360, WII, PS2)

Dungeon Explorer: Warrior of the Ancient Arts (PSP, DS)

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic: Elements (X360)

Spaceforce: Captains (PC)

Sam & Max Episode 203: Night of the Raving Dead (PC)

Carrier Strike Force (PC)

XIII Century: Death or Glory (PC)

Wipeout Pulse (PSP)

Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon (Special Edition) (PS2)

RPG Maker VX (PC)

denied

Levine: There Will Be No PS3 BioShock

Joystiq got a chance to talk to 2K Boston's Ken Levine about the various problems surrounding the BioShock launch that we've been documenting exhaustively over the past several days. In the process of admitting that screw ups were made, he also neatly nullified a rumor that had been spreading around about a possible port of BioShock to the PS3.

Then there is the lingering question of the rumored PS3 version of BioShock found in the PC code. Levine responds quite clearly, "I promise you, there is no secret plan about the PS3 that we're keeping from people. There's no PS3 development going on that we're hiding. There's lots of stuff that gets into game code, plans change over time and we got an exclusive deal with Microsoft ... that's not a Rosetta Stone discovery."

Yep, exactly as I thought. Old code left in from before the game went exclusive. Sorry PlayStation Universe!

Levine confirms no PS3 BioShock and does mea culpa on PC issues — success hurts [Joystiq]

I'm going to be honest. When the press release for Eidos' Conflict: Denied Ops was issued today, I genuinely thought it was a joke. With a title that sounded more parody than committee driven marketing decision, Conflict: Denied Ops is either striving for optimal sales with people who demand "Ops" in their game naming conventions or the driest, most cliched concept of all time. The game, a first person shooter, focuses on weapons-based military tactics and co-op gameplay, if you can believe such a thing.

Additional current-gen buzzwords you're supposed to be interested in include "politically sensitive", "highly destructible" and "seamlessly." Of course, it's for every "next-gen" platform, meaning the PC, Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3 game will probably be a graphical showcase with its...... zzzzzzz....

Press... zzzz... release... jump....

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