Sony/Rockstar GamesYesterday evening, a particularly wild rumour started doing the rounds. The story went that Sony was in advanced board level discussions to acquire Take-Two Interactive, the publisher behind such juggernaut franchises as Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto, and Civilization.
Obviously, this would have been one of the biggest moves in the entertainment industry since Disney made its deal with Fox. Among other things, the implication of Sony buying Rockstar’s parent company could have led to a world where the next GTA ended up as a PlayStation 5 exclusive. Madness.
Whatever your feelings on these rumblings, it now looks like these unconfirmed reports were just that: unconfirmed, and actually not true. That’s according to multiple sources who have spoken up since the rumours first broke.
While Wedbush Securities analyst Joel Kulina did note that Take-Two Interactive Software stock climbed 4.7% following the rumours (which certainly seemed to lend the report some credibility), GI.biz reached out for clarification.
He told the site:
This is purely unconfirmed market speculation that is making the rounds. I am not the source of this story in any regard. And not sure who quoted me as I didn’t speak with anyone over the phone (unless someone saw a trading note that I wrote).
It’s also worth noting that the writers of the original MarketWatch piece, Sue Chang confirmed to GI.biz that Kulina’s note was the only place they’d actually heard the rumour.
More recently, Bloomberg Tech reporter, Yuji Nakamura took to Twitter to announce that Sony confirmed to him there is “no truth” to the reports of a Take-Two buyout. I imagine that’s that, then.
Everyone including Wedbush already knew this, but here you go for the record: Sony confirmed to me there's "no truth" to reports that it will acquire Take Two
— Yuji Nakamura (@ynakamura56) March 14, 2019
Even those who reported on the rumours did express a fairly hefty degree of skepticism. After all, Take Two make buckets of money from GTA Online alone, not to mention all its other record breaking franchises.
Sony would have needed pretty deep pockets if they were gonna spring for a company like that, and while such a thing isn’t impossible, it is just incredibly unlikely.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.