Last week, rumours emerged that Sony were in “advanced board level” discussions to buy Take Two Interactive, the publisher that owns Rockstar Games.
The landmark deal, if it were to go through, would likely result in celebrated Rockstar franchises like Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, and Midnight Club becoming PlayStation exclusives.
That would be very, very bad news for Microsoft. Rockstar has sold more than 23 million copies of Red Dead Redemption 2 since its release late last year, and anticipation is high for another game-changing Grand Theft Auto entry some time in 2020. Market Watch reported that Take Two’s stock went up as talk of the “mostly cash deal” swirled.
For now at least, Xbox users can breathe a sigh of relief. Bloomberg tech reporter Yuji Nakamura spoke to Sony chiefs, and the Japanese gaming giants confirmed that there was “no truth” to the rumours.
Which is good, obviously, but Microsoft wouldn’t have had a leg to stand on if it did go through. The tech colossus pulled a similar move in 2002 when they snapped up Rare, the video game developer that had previously pledged allegiance to Nintendo with classics like GoldenEye 007 and Banjo-Kazooie.
Meanwhile, Google will be hoping that Rockstar's heavyweight titles can perform on their upcoming streaming service, Stadia. The cloud-console will reportedly be able to support up to 4K resolution, and the company managed to stream Assassin's Creed: Odyssey at 1080p through their Project Stream exercise earlier this year.
Stadia will launch with Doom Eternal, and gamers will be keen to see how it runs in comparison to home consoles. If it does a good job, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo will have a real problem on their hands.
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