heres a interesting read from some guy at Gfaqs
Microsoft buying a company isn't big news these days. They suck up all the little guys like a vacuum. However, when the company is question is Rockstar games, the small news becomes a supernova. I want to point out that at this point, neither company will comment on this buyout, so we are merely looking at the facts that are out there and speculating on how it will go down.
Take-Two has been a huge force in the gaming world, buying up small indie companies and bringing them into their collective. However, Rockstar has caused them far too much pain in their tenure with T2. Most notably, "Hot Coffee" cost the company a lot of money in fines and a full scale recall, and further tarnished Take-Two in the faces of the government and the ESRB.
A short time after the "Hot Coffee" fiasco, Take-Two's New York office was severely damaged in an office fire, destroying everything inside. All their records, hardware, software, everything. This hurt them badly. Take-Two has to relocate all of their employees, and considers filing for bankruptcy.
Take-Two is called before the congress to discuss GTA and the upcoming games "Bully" and "Snow". Congress warns that if either game is released, take-Two will face even further investigation and scrutiny.
E3 2006. A spectacular E3 for Microsoft. Peter Moore blows us away with the GTA 360 announcment and te now infamous tattoo. GTA IV is scheduled to launch on 360 first and PS3 a short time later.
The very next day on G4TV, Peter Moore sat down with Kevin Pereira for a shocking announcment. This is the one that would cause al the controversy! In the interview, Moore revealed that just prior the the interview he was doing, he signed a contract of exclusivity, and that GTA IV was now "Only on XBOX 360". Kevin asked Moore how he managed to steal away such a huge title from Sony. Moore stated that Rockstar were "smart businessmen" and that they "knew what they were doing".
After E3, no one was talking. Rockstar, Take-Two, Sony, Microsoft...nobody. Until Sony makes a statement that would almost collaborate what was happening behind the scenes. Sony co-CEO Jack Tretton commented in an interview about the deal, saying the following:
"There's no question that having the Grand Theft Auto franchise helped us a lot and helped us sell some units, but I don't think the battle would be any different with or without Grand Theft Auto.
If you look at our first-party library and the franchises that we've brought to market over the course of PlayStation 2, we have a very formidable first-party library of exclusive software that will help define us."
In other words, Sony claims they don't need GTA.
Take-Two is hit again by the ESRB, this time behind Oblivion's rating. Due to the fact that the PC version has a player created nude mod, the ESRB forces T2 to re-rate the game from T to M. Take-Two and Bethesda claim that this is all the fault of Rockstar, GTA, and the "Hot Coffee" situation. They say that if "Hot Coffee" never happened, the ESRB wouldn't have been so strict in this case.
Take-Two announces that they have cancelled the game "Snow" in which you sell, smuggle, and distribute drugs, saying they didn't want any more controversy, and that it "just isn't a good game".
Rockstar Games fires over half of it's employees, including one of the co-founders of Rockstar. A massive firing of this sort is almost ALWAYS indicative of a buyout. A huge mass firing is usually done to cut the fat, making room for employees of the purchasing company. This sends shockwaves throughout the industry.
And now most recently, Take-Two announced that it is in fact being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission regarding stock option grants given to employees between 1997 and today. A Federal investigation is exactly what the company doesn't need at the present time.
Despite the number of great titles they have on the shelves, T2 continues to lose more money than they are making. Certainly selling off the company that keeps them under scrutiny and investigation would help them in two ways. First, they would make a sweet sum of cash from the deal. Knowing MS, they were willing to pay a hefty sum to snatch Rockstar from T2. Second, cutting the only controversial developer on their roster would ensure the company could rise again to the levels in which it once was...this time without the added controversy that Rockstar brings.
Losing Rockstar also isn't a huge deal to T2, since their only two premiere franchise titles were GTA and Midnight Club. Most of Rockstar's other games have been considered flops by the press and players alike. T2 still has 2K games, which is one of the largest publishers on the scene today, as well as many other smaller companies.
Expect an official announcment about this buyout in the coming months. All the facts lead up to this buyout, so at this point, judging on the facts presented here today, we are 99.9% sure this is happening behind the scenes. If you all think back to the Rare buyout, certain details were very similar in the way they went down.
would be awesome if it where true, but does any one else feel that the era of GTA is gone now and its just A game and will not become THE gaming force it once was?
i need some help, my friend has asked me to help him buy a PC for his uni work and also for entertainment purposes now i have been out the loop on processor technology for a while so i need some of you techies to help a fellow software nerd out which is the better CPU the intel D 3.4 Ghz or the AMD Athlon X2 3800 Dual Core i narrowed it down to 2 PC's for him this in a Intel base system, it has a onboard gfx and no monitor (he has is old 19inch ctr) but the price is awesome here the specs Features * Intel Pentium D 945 3,40GHz * 1024MB DDR400 Memory * 250GB SATA II Hard Drive 7200RPM * DVD-RW 16x Dual Layer Optical Drive * 64MB / 256MB VGA Onboard * Dimension:180 (W) x 360 (H) x 420 (D) mm * Microsoft Windows XP Home * Nero Express 6 * Norton Anti-Virus 2006 (90 day trial) * Power DVD 6 * On Board 10/100 LAN * Warranty: 3yrs RTB Ports * 1 x PATA Ports * 4 x SATA Ports * PCI Slots: 2 x PCI, 1 x PCI-Express * 10/100 Onboard LAN * 1 x Serial Ports * 1 x Parallel Ports * 2 x USB2 Ports Front * 4 x USB2 Ports Rear * 2 x PS2 Ports * USB Keyboard * Microsoft Optical Mouse * Dimension: 190 (W) x 360 (H) x 375 (D * Average Weight: 12KG PC 2- has every thing dedicated gfx card (albeit a decent one) tft etc AMD Athlon X2 3800 Dual Core 64 Bit Processor 1024MB PC3200 400Mhz DDR Ram 250GB Serial ATA II HardDrive nVidia 7600GS 256MB PCI-E Graphics Card 16x Dual Layer +R/-R/RW DVD burner 7.1 8-Channel Capable Sound 1 x Gigabit LAN Logitech Wireless Optical Keyboard & mouse # ATX Midi Tower Case # 3 x 5.25" Drive Bays # 4 x 3.5" (2xInt, 2xExt) Bays # 4 x DDR slots (4GB max) # 1 x Parallel Port, 1 x Serial Port # 6 x USB2 (2 Front, 4 Back) # 1 x Gigabit LAN # 7.1 8-Channel Capable Sound # Front Mounted Audio # Dimensions (mm)- 192 (W) x 432 (H) x 445 (D now i assume the amd PC is better out the 2? but i need some to confirm it thanks