Take-Two's stock has just gone up today, which causes a little bit of a shock in the video game industry. A report from Market Watch speculates that the reason behind this unexpected 4.7% rise is because Sony is in high-level negotiations to acquire the American publisher. If that is indeed the case, and if the deal actually went through, that would mean Take-Two and all its subsidiary developers, including Rockstar Games, Hangar 13, and Firaxis, would be coming under Sony's roof.
The rumor, which reportedly came from Los Angeles-based investment firm Wedbush Securities, doesn’t offer any details, simply claiming that Sony is currently in "advanced board level discussions to acquire Take-Two Interactive in a mostly cash deal."
No other source for this rumor is available yet. Everybody is straight up denying it. Many sites have reported news about this, but all seem to lead back to Wedbush. As a result, this entire affair is most likely more speculative fiction than fact.
Furthermore, considering that Take-Two declined acquisition attempt from Electronic Arts a few years ago due to the fact that the cash offers were not sufficient enough, it seems incredibly unlikely that Sony would be willing to go big and just outright buy the publisher.
If this did end up happening, though, it would secure several of the biggest gaming licenses to the PlayStation platform, but at the same time it would also reduce the potential revenue of Take-Two by as high as two-thirds, not to mention rendering a huge part of the company totally redundant. Moreover, it would lead to the upcoming sci-fi RPG The Outer Worlds becoming the very first game made by a Microsoft-owned company and published by a Sony-owned company for PC, PS4, and Xbox One, which would be an interesting anomaly indeed.
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