Activision chairman and CEO Bobby Kotick came up with an explanation. On short, Take Two just didn’t have what it took to meet Activison’s criterea, an therefore, was not worth wasting the time and money on such a deal:
"I think we’ve had – as we’ve said for a very long time, now – well-stated criteria for what we’re interested in in an acquisition. We’ve said that we need a history of profitability, good management, the proprietary technology for a franchise, history of multimillion unit sellers.
And, for us, Take-Two didn’t fulfill those requirements. Maybe it does over the long-term for EA, but it doesn’t for us."
While he may be right up to a certain point, nobody can simply buy that. After all, we are talking about the Grand Theft Auto maker, and the franchise pretty well speaks for itself.
Until further data is available, the statement will be filed under “A case of sour grapes”.