The Call of Duty publisher needs new, already established franchises

Feb 7, 2012 00:11 GMT  ·  By

Activision, the publisher of massive properties like Call of Duty, should consider buying Take-Two Interactive, the company behind major franchises like Grand Theft Auto or BioShock, not to mention the popular NBA 2K series, according to games industry analyst Asif Khan.

[ADMARk=1]Take-Two Interactive is the publishing partner of games developer Rockstar, which makes the hugely successful Grand Theft Auto series and also delivered titles, like L.A. Noire or Red Dead Redemption in recent years.

Besides that, the company also owns various studios from all around the world as part of its 2K Games family, including BioShock developer Irrational Games.

As you can imagine, these impressive features have made Take-Two a prime target for acquisition, with Electronic Arts even trying a few years ago to aggressively take over the company.

After that failed attempt, Panoptic Management Consultants analyst Asif Kahn believes Activision should considering buying Take-Two, in order to gain access to properties like the aforementioned GTA, BioShock or NBA 2K ones.

"The bar has been set very high with the sales of Modern Warfare 3 and we are not sure how much longer they can keep pumping out the same IP before it goes all Tony Hawk on them. They should just man up and buy Take-Two Interactive,” Khan told Industry Gamers. “They could do it straight cash."

Currently, Take-Two is worth around $1.35 billion (€1.02 billion) and, considering Activision made $1 billion from just the two-week sales of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, the company could easily afford such an investment.

As of yet, however, Take-Two isn’t considering a takeover, saying that it’s quite satisfied with its independent status. However, its CEO, Strauss Zelnick, made it clear on several occasions that the company, given its portfolio and its partnership with Rockstar, wouldn’t be cheap.

Considering Take-Two stock prices are going to increase with the launch of upcoming titles like BioShock Infinite or Grand Theft Auto V, Activision might put off such an acquisition until the waters around the company calmed down.