EA: Take-Two deal now "50/50 at best"

GI's landed a whopper this morning, with EA comms head Jeff Brown telling the site that a completion of Take-Two buyout is now "50/50 at best".

"We're not desperate and there's a clock ticking," said the exec.

"It's always been mystifying as to why they thought it was important to wait," he added. "Everybody knew [GTA IV] was going to be fantastic; everybody new it was going to sell like crazy. So to suggest anyone was surprised by the success of the game, commercial or critical, is nonsense."

"EA's not desperate," Brown went on. "Part of our model for making this thing work at USD 2 billion is the assumption that if we can get this done in time to publish their games going into the Christmas holiday in '08 - because EA has an unchallenged publishing capability around the world - we could without question sell more units of those games than they could if they were on their own.

"The passage of time serves to weaken the value and the certainty of this deal."

More through the link.