Take-Two CEO Talks Acquisition Rumors, Says He's in No Hurry to Sell

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has once again talked about the new rumors that his company might be acquired by a bigger games publisher like Electronic Arts or Activision, highlighting that, while he is no hurry to sell Take-Two, all companies have a price.

Take-Two Interactive has been considered a one-trick pony for a long time, mainly because it was only able to turn a profit if its old partner, Rockstar, released a Grand Theft Auto game.

Now, with last year's extremely popular Red Dead Redemption, and with the recently released L.A. Noire, alongside plenty of other successful titles, the company is showing that it can still record a profit even if a GTA game isn't on the horizon.

As such, rumors of an acquisition have started flying around the web, and the CEO of the company, Strauss Zelnick, has talked with GamaSutra about them, saying that, while he isn't in a hurry to sell the Take-Two, all public companies can be bought for the right price.

"I'm proud of what we've delivered," he says. "I'm proud of the value we've created for shareholders in the past few years. I'm proud the team has had precious few missteps. But, we're there for the shareholders. All public companies are potentially available. Every time something has come up we've considered it. All that said, we enjoy being an independent company."

Take-Two Interactive was set to be acquired at the end of 2008 by Electronic Arts, but the bid eventually failed, so rumors are now focusing on another huge games publisher, in the form of Activision.

Take-Two is seeing massive increases in stock price, especially after the rave reviews achieved by L.A. Noire, which dominated the recent NPD sales charts for the month of May.

The future holds even more big games that will appear from Take-Two, including BioShock Infinite, Max Payne 3 and the oft-rumored Grand Theft Auto V.