What happened
Rumor of a potential buyout from a big-pocketed strategic investor was inflating the share price of video game company Take-Two Interactive Software (TTWO +0.72%) on Thursday. As a result, its stock zoomed more than 6% higher on the day, trouncing the less than 0.8% gain of the bellwether S&P 500 index.
So what
The hot gossip is that none other than Japanese tech and entertainment giant Sony (SONY 0.42%) is the interested party. Apparently, the company will make a play to buy Take-Two if Microsoft succeeds in its determination to acquire Take-Two's fellow video game maker Activision Blizzard.
NASDAQ: TTWO
Key Data Points
The fuel for this rumor appears to be a Thursday morning post on a relatively obscure entertainment website called Xfire. The post cites as a source a tweet published on Monday by a self-described "gaming industry analyst" with the Twitter handle of Rythian.
In the tweet, Rythian claimed to "have it on extremely good word that if Microsoft acquires Activision Blizzard, Sony is going after Take-Two Interactive to counter it."
Rythian added that three of his "trusted and almost always correct sources" confirmed this. He did not provide any more detail. Neither Take-Two nor Sony has yet commented on this speculation.
Now what
While the idea of a Sony takeover of Take-Two is certainly enticing for shareholders and intriguing for everyone else, at this point, it's only the thinnest of rumors. It's not coming from any sources that can be considered authoritative.
That said, Sony has plenty of financial muscle for a big-ticket acquisition should it want to bulk up in the video game segment. At the end of its most recently reported quarter, it had the equivalent of nearly $12 billion in cash and short-term investments and, surely, the ability to secure much more through various types of financing.
