There's rumours! Rumours on the street. Wall Street, to be precise, as investment site Seeking Alpha say they've heard EA may be "walking away from merger talks" with long-time takeover target Take-Two. T2's conference call earlier today said nothing of this, of course, nor have EA (as the pair are now cosy in their cone of silence), so this is all conjecture, but it's hardly outrageous conjecture. The EA-T2 courtship rituals have been prologued, fumbling and, ultimately, boring, with a deal looking less and less likely the longer the whole sorry mess drags itself along.

It's D-Day For Take-Two Interactive [Seeking Alpha, via GamePolitics] [Image]

With Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars coming to the Nintendo DS exclusively, does that pave the way for a Wii release? After all, the Wii is the best selling console in North America right now and Take-Two and Rockstar Games don't shy away from bringing mature content — Manhunt 2 and Bully, for example — to the little white wonder. And Grand Theft Auto IV is making Take-Two big bucks. Sounds like a profitable relationship on par with the perfection of chocolate and peanut butter.

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Our nation's youth will be corrupted on the go, Grand Theft Auto-style, as early as November of this year and as late as January of 2009, according to today's Take-Two Interactive investor call. CEO Ben Feder pegged Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for the Nintendo DS as a fiscal Q1 '09 release, putting it in the same quarter as GTA IV's Japanese launch date.

Feder wouldn't confirm that the title would hit before the holidays, despite requests from callers to clarify.

If rumours are right, Chinatown Wars will hit in the same three month window — November 1 to January 31 — as GTA IV's Xbox 360 exclusive downloadable episodes. If that GTA three-way does happen, it could make for a very happy group of shareholders. And a lot of virtual bystander corpses.

Take-Two Interactive announced alongside its quarterly results that Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto IV has sold over 10 million units as of August 16. The release noted that the publisher's fiscal third quarter was "led by the blockbuster" and continues to exceed the company's expectations.

With the PC release and the localised Japanese version still to come, it's looking more and more likely that GTA IV can hit that 15 million mark in 2008, as Hudson Square Research analyst Daniel Ernst predicted.

A cheaper Xbox 360 and forthcoming episodic content sure won't hurt GTA IV's chances this holiday season.

Like a corporate ninja, Electronic Arts has hurled a flash bomb and vanished into the shadows with Take-Two Interactive bundled under its cloak.

Umm. Do Ninjas wear cloaks? Perhaps the metaphor breaks down a bit at that point.

No matter - the point is that EA has entered into a confidentiality agreement with Take-Two and both parties are now obliged to keep their lips tightly zipped with regard to the companies ongoing discussions.

Following the FTC's announcement last week that they would not oppose any merger, EA decided not to renew the formal bid and has been having some cosy chats with its new friends at Take-Two.

Cosy chats that from now on we will not be party to. Bah.

EA: We Might Be Talking To Take-Two, We Might Not. But We're Not Talking About It Publicly Anymore [Sillicon Alley Insider]

The Federal Trade Commission has posted closing letters to its site that show it has closed its Antitrust investigation into the Electronic Arts/Take Two merger.

Upon further review of this matter, it now appears that no additional action by the Commission is warranted at this time. Accordingly, the investigation has been closed.

So.. essentially EA are free to pursue their merger. Or would be, had they not let their bid expire on Monday.

With the FTC investigation put to bed, though, EA are now able to enter into private negotiations with Take Two. Take Two is now to give EA its three-year financial forecasts and the game will continue...

An EA merger with Take-Two gets U.S. antitrust OK [Reuters via GamePolitics]

After months of wooing, of angry words and bitter arguments, Electronic Arts and Take-Two have finally decided to break it off and by break it off I mean that EA isn't going to reup their offer to buy Take-Two.... again. But wait, not so quick. Don't think for a second that means that the the two companies aren't still going to go at it in the break room when no ones around.

EA says they've decided to let their latest offer to buy up Take-Two lock stock and, well stock at $US 25.74 a share expire at midnight tonight, but only because they don't think they would have the time anymore to dress up their new acquisition and parade her around for the holidays. In exchange, Take-Two is promising to stop by Electronic Arts one of these days and show EA just how super awesome they are, but only if they don't tell anyone.

I expect one of them to get totally drunk come Christmas and spill all of the beans over a ham dinner.

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Last week we dropped you a Midnight Club: Los Angeles Trailer and this one is definitely as impressive. Having been to E3 I can tell you driving through the streets of LA going 100+ mph would be a blast, not in real life of course.

Reggie wants it. You (maybe) want it. Take-Two shareholders most certainly want it. So Grand Theft Auto on the Wii's a no-brainer, right? Sure looks that way to us, but we're not Take-Two. Our names aren't anything cool like Strauss. Take-Two themselves are being awful suggestive on the subject, with Ben Feder responding to the "GTA on Wii?" question with:

I can't comment on it, but obviously we have one of the best selling third -party games on the Wii in Carnival Games from 2K Play, so we know the Wii pretty well. We're building up assets to develop for the Wii and we're excited about its growth. I can't comment on GTA specifically on the Wii...

Read into that what you will, but we read a man saying those words with a smirk on his face and his right hand patting his wallet ever so softly.

Interview: Take-Two's Ben Feder Talks GTA, Wii, MMOs and More [GameDaily]

Never let it be said Take-Two aren't focused on quality. They don't have the packed release schedule of companies like EA or Activision, but pound-for-pound, their games are amongst the best-regarded in the business. A strategy chairman Strauss Zelnick is very keen on, telling VentureBeat that quality will always win out over quantity:

In periods of high growth, like where we are now, B titles and C titles can do OK. But as soon as you get to the point where the platform penetration has reached its asymptote, then quality reins supreme. We think that if you focus on quality all along, regardless of where the market peak is, you will do better.

Explaining, perhaps, why T2's Wii catalogue isn't quite as robust as some other publisher's.

E3 perspective: Q&A with Chairman Strauss Zelnick on the future of Take-Two Interactive [VentureBeat]