EA goes hostile for Take-Two
Updated March 13, 12:45 PM PDT, to reflect the announcement by EA.
Electronic Arts has launched a $26-per-share tender offer for all outstanding shares of game publisher Take-Two following the rejection of an unsolicited bid.
The bid for the rival publisher of the Grand Theft Auto game places the value of Take-Two at $2 billion. Announced Thursday, the EA tender offer is set to expire April 11 at midnight Eastern Time, unless extended.
The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on its Web site Wednesday night, citing people familiar with the matter.
In February, EA issued a public statement saying it had made an earlier offer to Take-Two that was rejected and that it was boosting the per-share price it was willing to pay to make the deal worth $2 billion. But Take-Two quickly issued its own announcement, saying it thought EA's offer was too small and that it would prefer to wait to have any negotiations with anyone until after the April 29 release of Grand Theft Auto IV, which is expected to be a hit.
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. Before joining CNET News in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers. E-mail Steven. 
EA has a history of forcing studios to release games on a schedule regardless if they are ready or not. So many of there games ship with bugs and glitches... I can count at least 3 games that I preordered and they already had patches out on zero day.
I'm sure it will happen with Take-Two if EA gets a hold of them. The only game I can think of that EA hasn't tried to screw up with forced release dates is Spore and that's because they like the rest of us think it's vaporware ;)