Report: Take-Two says it has more offers

Electronic Arts is not alone in its interest in buying Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal (subscription required to read entire article).

SEC filings show that Take-Two says it has received other offers, but has spurned those as well as the original $2 billion offer EA made last Friday and announced last Sunday, the Journal reports.

EA issued a public statement on Sunday 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.

For its part, EA has said it wanted to get a deal done before the game's release. It is also evident that EA's interest in Take-Two is at least partly in response to the recent acquisition of Activision by Vivendi, a marriage that could potentially turn the resulting video game giant, to be known as Activision Blizzard, into the industry's largest company.