Take-Two Possibly For Sale, Sues Jack Thompson

Earlier this month we wrote about a group of Take-Two shareholders trying to take down the company's current CEO, Paul Eibeler (story), in a corporate battle whose outcome was to be decided this week, at Take-Two's annual stockholders meeting. But that meeting will not take place on March 23, as initially schedueled, because the company has desperately postponed it for March 29, while announcing that in the meantime they will try to find "alternative courses of action" so that the current management can keep its dubious leadership.

One surprising solution suggested in yesterday's press release is the sale of Take-Two Interactive, something that sounds pretty hard to achieve in less than ten days - and even harder afterwards, when the rebellious shareholders will likely take control of the board.

According to various reports summed up on GamePolitics, most industry analysts have serious doubts about the sale of Take-Two, even though rival publishers Ubisoft, THQ, Activision and/or Electronic Arts might be interested in (parts of) the company. One analyst from Wedbush-Morgan is even quoted as saying: "This is crazy... I can't see a sale happening, unless there is truly a 'greater fool' out there".

As if things weren't troubled enough for Take-Two, over the weekend the company also initiated a pre-emptive legal strike against Jack Thompson - who has been threatening to block the release of Grand Theft Auto IV and Manhunt 2 later this year, through an upcoming lawsuit. His similar attempt to block the sale of Bully last autumn was a complete failure, but nevertheless Thompson remains just as confident that he will single-handedly bring down the publisher:

"I have been praying, literally, that Take-Two and its lawyers would do something so stupid... that such a misstep would enable me to destroy Take-Two (...) The pit Take-Two has dug for itself will be patently clear [this] week when I strike back."

Join us later for Court Wars Episode V: The Miami Attorney Strikes Back.

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)